To uncover the secrets of the human heart, we need to be clever. And building a school of robotic fish powered by human heart cells is just one way of doing that. A school of robotic fish created with this technique by a team of researchers at Harvard University and Emory University has come "alive": They can swim by recreating the contractions of a pumping heart. The heart cells in their body contract and stretch, causing their tails to move autonomously. This shows how lab-grown heart tissue can be designed to maintain a rhythmic beat indefinitely, taking science one step closer to building an artificial heart and offering a unique platform to investigate cardiac illness like arrhythmia.
The idea behind the fish is geniusly simple: These zebrafish-based biohybrids are made of paper, plastic, gelatin, and two strips of living heart muscle cells. One strip runs along the robot's left side, while the other runs along the right. When the muscle cells on one side contract, the tail moves in that direction. This propels the fish through the water. The opposite side's muscle cell strip similarly stretches as a result of the action. This stretching then sends a signal to the cells, causing them to contract, which keeps the swimming motion going.
Credits: https://interestingengineering.com/fish-swimming-heart-cells
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