Scientists at Harvard University have engineered an artificial fish whose flapping tail is powered by cells from a human heart, a groundbreaking project that has ignited hopes for the future of cardiac research.
The team of scientists at Harvard, in collaboration with Emory University, built the “biohybrid fish” using paper, plastic, gelatin and two strips of living heart muscle cells, the contractions of which pulled the fish’s tail from side to side and allowed it to swim.
The research team published its findings in the journal Science last week and video released by the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences on Twitter showed a small robotic fish flapping its tail and moving about for 20 seconds.
The study marks a hopeful step in the advancement of heart treatments such as pacemakers.
“The benefit of this fish project is that we are still trying to master the craft of using live cells as an engineering substrate,” Kit Parker, one of the authors of the study, told the Guardian on Monday.
“The heart is extremely complex and it’s not enough to mimic the anatomy,” added Parker, a Harvard professor. “One must recreate the biophysics in order to have the robust behavior required of building engineered hearts for children born with malformed hearts.”
Earlier, Parker told National Public Radio that at first scientists were not sure how long the school of artificial fish would function, but they swam for more than 100 days.
Parker told the Guardian that the team was pleasantly surprised.
“By replicating the biophysics of the heart into this fish, we were activating various processes within these cells that are designed to help them sustain themselves,” he said. “We are hoping that in our next endeavor, we will keep these cells and these tissues alive much longer than even four-and-a-half months.”
The muscle cells in the experiment reportedly grew stronger with exercise, a positive indication that this could be implemented in treating heart failures.
Parker was also previously part of a Harvard team that in 2016 built a small robotic stingray also powered by heart cells from a rat that contracted when exposed to light.
Despite the latest extraordinary development, Parker said that a lot more work needs to be done.
“We learned what we needed to learn, we have adapted the inventions to our current efforts to understand pediatric disease and now we are moving on to try to build a more complex model of a three-dimensional marine organism using human cardiac cells and human cardiac biophysics,” he said.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS