[tt] NYT: Printing Out a Biological Machine

[Eugen Leitl]

----- Forwarded message from Frank Forman <che...@panix.com> -----

Date: Wed, 21 Aug 2013 00:44:23 +0000 (GMT)
From: Frank Forman <che...@panix.com>
To: Transhuman Tech <t...@postbiota.org>
Subject: [tt] NYT: Printing Out a Biological Machine

Printing Out a Biological Machine
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/science/printing-out-a-biological-machine.html

By HENRY FOUNTAIN

URBANA-CHAMPAIGN, Ill.--Not all bioengineers who are using
printers in the lab are trying to create tissues or organs. Some are
intent on making biological machines.

In the laboratory of Rashid Bashir, head of the bioengineering
department at the University of Illinois here, researchers have made
small hybrid "biobots"--part gel, part muscle cell--that can
move on their own. The research may someday lead to the development
of tiny devices that could travel within the body, sensing toxins
and delivering medication.

Vincent Chan, a postdoctoral researcher in the lab and lead author
of a paper published last fall describing the work, said he first
started looking at using 3-D printers about five years ago. "Our
goal coming into this was the holy grail--organ printing," he
said. "But, obviously, it's very complex and very difficult." So he
and others in the lab began looking at other ways to use the
technology.

With the biobots, the printer prints the gel, not the cells. And it
prints the gel in a specific shape--something like a tiny
springboard, about one-quarter-inch long, that is elevated on a
short base. Then heart muscle cells from rats are placed on one side
of the board.

"The cells start to spread out and form connections," Dr. Chan said.
And then, being heart cells, they start to beat in unison. The
contractions cause the board to curl and uncurl, moving the whole
structure forward. With the 3-D printer, the researchers were able
to make springboards of different thicknesses to alter the degree of
curling, optimizing the movement.

The work is part of a multi-university research project, financed by
the National Science Foundation, to develop multicellular devices
with applications in health care, security and other fields. Or, as
Dr. Chan put it, to take some of the components of organisms--
muscle cells, brain cells and others--"and combine them in
different ways to create a different type of biological machine."

The Illinois researchers are working on regulating the muscle
contractions, which would have the effect of speeding or slowing the
biobots, or getting them to start and stop. One obvious way to do
this would be to use chemicals: Putting caffeine on the heart cells
will increase the frequency of the contractions, for example. But
Dr. Chan said the researchers were also looking at genetic
engineering techniques that would allow them to use light to turn
the contractions on or off.

"That's the fun part of this," he said. "Now we're trying to move to
controlling it."
_______________________________________________
tt mailing list
t...@postbiota.org
http://postbiota.org/mailman/listinfo/tt

----- End forwarded message -----
--
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://ativel.com http://postbiota.org
AC894EC5: 38A5 5F46 A4FF 59B8 336B 47EE F46E 3489 AC89 4EC5