News, Biohybrid fish made from human cardiac cells swims autonomously

Researchers at Harvard and Emory University created a biohybrid fish using paper, plastic, gelatin, and two muscle layers. These muscle layers were created from human cardiac cells. The design of the model fish was based on zebra fish, with a muscle layer on either side of the tail fin. When one side contracts, the other side stretches releasing proteins that causes a contraction. This creates a closed loop which was able to autonomously propel the fish for over 100 days, sustained by nutrients added in the swimming fluid.

The ultimate goal is to create artificial hearts. This is not the first biohybrid device made by the team, having already created biohybrid pumps with rat cardiac cells. The purpose of these experiments is to understand how the heart works. While it’s easy to something that looks like a heart, it’s difficult to build a something that also works like a heart. By replicating the heart functions in the fish, it allows the researchers to better observe and understand how the heart functions.

Not only for healing hearts, this work shows the exciting prospect of biohybrid bots. From robotics, development of bio-computer chips to even ethical concerns, there are many applications and conversations to be held as the technology matures. I believe the future of computation is in biology.

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