Scientists have used stem cells from frogs to create new living robots that can recover from injuries and even record memories. Named “Xenobots” after the smooth clawed frog (Xenopus laevis), they are a modernized version of the microrobots first shown last year.
Like their predecessors, the new xenobots can act individually or collectively, but the new version does it faster, lives longer, and can record information about their surroundings. The researchers believe that future models of microrobots will be able to detect diseases and deliver drugs to specific areas of the human body.
Biologists from Tufts University (USA) made microinjections of RNA into amphibian eggs, and a day later they removed the shell of the eggs. They then took tissue samples from the stem cells of the frog embryo and placed them in an artificial environment. There, they formed what are called cilia (spheres with tiny structures) that can move around and close lacerations after five minutes. Meanwhile, scientists at the University of Vermont used a computer algorithm to simulate the behavior of various forms of xenobots, which determined which ones were better at collecting garbage in heaps. The researchers concluded that the new xenobots are much better at this task than their predecessors.
The team also gave microrobots a basic memory function, which is provided by a fluorescent reporter protein called EosFP, which usually glows green, but glows red when exposed to blue at 390 nm. The researchers injected messenger RNA, which encodes a protein, into the frog embryo cells, which allowed xenobots to record the effects of blue light with a wavelength of 390 nm. They tested this on 10 robots, and after two hours of the experiment, three of them were emitting red light.
Scientists call this “travel memories.” They believe that this function can be improved, and in the future, such micro-robots will be able to detect the presence of drugs, pollutants or disease conditions. For more information on xenobots, see the journal Science Robotics.
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