Health Care

Xenobots: The Living Machines That Can Save Your Life

Scientists have created what they call the world’s first “living machines” by taking cells from frog embryos and “evolving” them with algorithms to create new organisms. 

While the stem cells originally came from frogs – the African Clawed frog/Xenopus Laevis – in particular – the “xenobots” are nothing like any known amphibian. These little guys are just 1 millimeter wide and are made from living tissue assembled into a body designed by computer models, according to the study they were announced in. 

The tiny organisms are able to move independently and as a collective. They can heal themselves and survive for weeks by themselves. Scientists say that the xenobots could be used to transport medicine inside a patient’s body directly. 

The xenobots were shaped by algorithms that defined their evolution. They began as skin and heart stem cells that formed into clumps of several hundred cells. These clumps moved via pulses generated by the muscle tissue in their hearts, according to Sam Kriegman, lead study author and a doctoral candidate studying evolutionary robotics at the University of Vermont’s Department of Computer Science in Burlington. 

Biologists fed the constraints the organism would have into a computer, such as their maximum muscle power and how they may move through watery environments. The algorithm would then produce a generation of xenobots. The best of the bunch would then “reproduce” inside the algorithm. The computer essentially simulated the evolutionary survival of the fittest with the computer eliminating the least successful forms of the xenobot. 

The computer was eventually able to design a xenobot that could be created with real cells, which was the major breakthrough the researchers were waiting for. 

The researchers took these designs and brought them to life. They put the stem-cells together to create the self-powered 3D shapes in the designs generated by the algorithm. The xenobots were held together with skin cells, and they were propelled through the water in a petri dish by the power of their heart tissue. They were able to last for up to weeks at a time without any additional nutrients, according to the researchers. Kriegman says that the xenobots were also able to self-repair damage to their bodies. 

He said the scientists cut one of them almost in half and it was able to put itself back together automatically. 

Michael Levin, a co-author of the study and the director of the Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology at Tufts University in Massachusetts, says that there are several applications for these xenobots that can’t be served by traditional robots. For example, the machines could help with radioactive contamination and toxic spills, collecting microplastic in the ocean, or removing plaque from human arteries. 

The idea of organisms that blur the lines between living organisms and robots are a trope in science fiction – often of the dystopian kind. Think about the replicants from Blade Runner or the Terminators. The idea of creating these living robots has some people concerned. 

“That fear is not unreasonable,” Levin said. “When we start to mess around with complex systems that we don’t understand, we’re going to get unintended consequences.” 

Even so, there’s definitely the potential for beneficial discoveries and sues for these xenobots. 

The researchers published their findings in the Jan. 13 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

 

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