Saturday, August 4, 2012

A tissue-engineered jellyfish with biomimetic propulsion


 Janna C Nawroth, Hyungsuk Lee, Adam W Feinberg, Crystal M Ripplinger, Megan L McCain,  Anna Grosberg, John O Dabiri & Kevin Kit Parker Nature Biotechnology 2012 AOP

This paper shows off a decent stab at designing a bioengineered jelly fish that swims around. After computational studies and weeks of aquarium observation, their final design incorporates  rat muscle tissue with a silicone polymer body and is fueled by pace makers activated by an external magnetic field. The result swims somewhat clumsily (As you can see in this Cool Video), but it is pretty darn cool as far as proofs of concept go.

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