Biohybrid fish powered by beating human heart cells swims for 100 days
Researchers at Harvard and Emory University have created a biohybrid fish out of human heart muscle cells that can swim autonomously for months at a time as the cells beat. The project is a quirky sidestep on the way to eventually growing new functioning hearts for transplant.
This isn’t the first robot that this team has cobbled together out of heart cells. A few years ago they made a stingray out of heart cells from rats that could be steered with pulses of light. But for this new one, they upgraded to heart muscle cells derived from human stem cells, and created a fish robot that could swim around on its own.
Researchers at Harvard and Emory University have created a biohybrid fish out of human heart muscle cells that can swim autonomously for months at a time as the cells beat. The project is a quirky sidestep on the way to eventually growing new functioning hearts for transplant.
This isn’t the first robot that this team has cobbled together out of heart cells. A few years ago they made a stingray out of heart cells from rats that could be steered with pulses of light. But for this new one, they upgraded to heart muscle cells derived from human stem cells, and created a fish robot that could swim around on its own.