Imagine miniature self-repairing living robots that could move, carry things, and work together—safely delivering drugs inside the human body or helping with environmental remediation. Even more importantly, imagine using such synthetic creations to teach us how to control the formation of organs for regenerative medicine.
Now researchers at Tufts and the University of Vermont report that they have created such living machines, what they call Xenobots, that might one day do just that.
While most machines are constructed from materials like steel and plastic, which can degrade or break over time and have harmful side effects, living systems made from self-renewing and biocompatible materials would avoid those negative consequences.
