I recently came across some research from a team of scientists at Tufts University in Massachusetts, describing their development of ‘anthrobots’. For those like myself, who have never heard of this before, anthrobots are spheres of human tracheal cells that are grown in vitro to form spheroids of a few hundred cells each. The cilia on the outside cells allows the anthrobots to “swim” in patterns, prompting Levin and his team to consider their potential as therapeutic agents.

Levin and his team tested the therapeutic potential of anthrobots to heal a layer of neural tissue that had been damaged by a scratch. They observed that the anthrobots joined together to form a ‘superbot’ – sounds cool, right? What’s even cooler is that after 3 days of incubating the damaged neural tissue with the ‘superbot’, the tissue was completely healed! This surprised the team as this happened without any genetic modification, just the anthrobot’s own functionality. As stated by co-author of the study, Gizem Gumuskaya, it was “not obvious that you’re going to get that kind of response”, prompting the team to think of the wider applications.

My name is Emily, I am in my second year of studying Biochemistry and I chose ‘Engineering Replacing Body Parts’ module because it sounded really interesting and unique. I love looking into new research and it is very important to keep up to date with the technology which goes along science. For example, I have recently come across Elon Musk’s Neuralink project, this has particular importance at the moment as the first implant has been put into a human patient. The idea of Musk’s project is to enable the human brain to connect to devices such as phones and other devices. Musk said “Initial results show promising neuron spike detection,” He aimed to recruit subjects aged 22 and above with quadriplegia or spinal cord injury patients, in order to help those that can’t move. I think this project Elon Musk has taken on could be revolutionary for the future, so far he has conducted animal trials on terminally ill monkeys and none of which have died. This is why it has moved on to patient testing, however it is still early days which leaves people dubious of whether it will work or not. This is such a clever piece of machinery which has the ability to charge its battery wireless through a conductive charger

Neurolink

Here is a short video explaining in more depth how Neurolink works

Despite the fact that I am completing a degree with the focus on drugs and the human anatomy, I was previously interested in studying Biomedical Engineering. Instead of studying the degree, I decided that taking up the ‘Engineering Replacement Body Parts’ module would suffice. The following images and this video are things I personally relate the engineering module to:

I would say that a movie I watched when I was a child also sparked interest in this area, it is named Astro Boy. An inventor creates a robotic replica of this deceased son from a single strand of his hair. The ‘Perfect Replica’ YouTube video is linked here.