In 2020, the world saw its first glimpse of a living robot.
Known as the Xenobot, this microscale organism could move, self-heal, and work with other bots to meet a common goal.
But all these features have gotten a massive upgrade including..memory.
Say hello to Xenobot 2.0.
The original Xenobots were developed by a team of biologists and computer engineers at Tufts University and the University of Vermont.
These micromachines measured less than a millimeter wide and could work together to push payloads.
They were formed using skin and heart muscle cells harvested from the embryos of the African claw-toed frog.
The team then used a sophisticated algorithm to generate a variety of Xenobot designs.
From those designs, scientists performed microsurgery to poke, prod, and shape the stem cells according to the algorithm.
They had a variety of looks, from two-lobed blobs to hollow structures depending on what task was needed for the little bot to accomplish.
And they could do a lot, like propel themselves in straight lines and circles,
and herd loose particles into tiny heaps together.
And now, Xenobots are headed to the next level.
Instead of using muscle cells, Xenobot 2.0 moves using cilia,
which are tiny hair-like features that move similarly to how oars propel a rowboat through water.
By extracting skin stem cells from a frog’s embryo, the team then allowed the cells to self assemble as they naturally would.
They independently formed into spheres, and after approximately four days,
some of those stem cells started to move—all due to the presence of hundreds of individual cilia along the surface of the cell.
This allowed the individual self-assembled cell to freely “swim” using their “hairs” to propel them across surfaces.
The development of cilia is a perfect example of how the genetic makeup of the frog has been preserved.
This makeup also has the ability to recover from damage.
The original Xenobots could self-repair, but biologists have really dialed things up with the next generation.
The new bots are more durable and capable of recovering from a full-length cut after just five minutes of injury.
Additional testing has also found that 100% of injured Xenobots completely healed within 15 minutes.
And then they just go back to what they were doing...just another walk in the microscopic park!
But what’s the biggest upgrade of Xenobot 2.0? That has to be its ability to remember...
which no Xenobot has been able to do before.
This is done through an injection of mRNA into the frog embryo before harvesting the stem cell tissue.
The mRNA is coded for a special fluorescent protein known as EosFP.
EosFP is naturally found in stony coral and emits green light.
But when exposed to 390-nanometers of blue light, it will emit red light instead.
Researchers were able to prove the memory functionality by exposing a few Xenobots to this wavelength,
resulting in their emitting red light, while the unexposed bots remained green.
By proving that the bots can be engineered to record memory, scientists are hoping to use this feature in the future
to not only detect light but also the presence of radioactive substances, chemical pollutants, and even diseases.
And thinking even further into the future, the memory functionality could be used as a trigger within the bots to change their behavior in reaction to their environment.
The real-life applications of these Xenobots seem endless, spanning everything from ocean cleanup to regenerative medicine.
Researchers are now focusing on two things: the process of how cells communicate to form an organism,
and the genomes needed to create more advanced living robots in the future.
In fact, the team behind Xenobot 2.0 launched the Institute for Computationally Designed Organisms
to continue the development of living robots that can accomplish even more sophisticated tasks.
So, who knows what we’ll see next...maybe Xenobot 3.0?
What would you like to see this little bot accomplish?
Let us know down in the comments. And if you want to learn more about the team’s first Xenobot, then check out our video on that here.
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