Biomimetic robots, which mimic the actions and organic features of residing organisms, are an interesting space of analysis that may not solely result in extra environment friendly robots but additionally function a platform for understanding muscle biology.
Amongst these, biohybrid actuators, made up of soppy supplies and muscular cells that may replicate the forces of precise muscular tissues, have the potential to realize life-like actions and features, together with self-healing, excessive effectivity, and excessive power-to-weight ratio, which have been tough for conventional cumbersome robots that require heavy vitality sources.
One option to obtain these life-like actions is to rearrange muscle cells in biohybrid actuators in an anisotropic method. This entails aligning them in a selected sample the place they’re oriented in numerous instructions, like what’s present in residing organisms.
Whereas earlier research have reported biohybrid actuators with important motion utilizing this system, they’ve largely targeted on anisotropically aligning muscle cells in a straight line, leading to solely easy motions, versus the complicated motion of native muscle tissues resembling twisting, bending, and shrinking. Actual muscle tissues have a posh association of muscle cells, together with curved and helical patterns.
Creating such complicated preparations requires the formation of curved microgrooves (MGs) on a substrate, which then function the information for aligning muscle cells within the required patterns. Fabrication of complicated MGs has been achieved by strategies resembling photolithography, wavy micrography and micro-contact printing. Nevertheless, these strategies contain a number of intricate steps and aren’t appropriate for speedy fabrication.
To deal with this, a crew of researchers from Tokyo Institute of Expertise (Tokyo Tech) in Japan, led by Affiliate Professor Toshinori Fujie from the Faculty of Life Science and Expertise, has developed an ultraviolet (UV) laser-processing approach for fabricating complicated microstructures.
“Based mostly on our earlier prototypes, we hypothesized that biohybrid actuators utilizing an SBS (arduous rubber) skinny movie with arbitrary anisotropic MGs fabricated by a UV laser processing can management mobile alignment in an arbitrarily anisotropic route to breed extra life-like versatile actions,” explains Dr. Fujie. Their examine has been printed within the journal Biofabrication.
The novel approach contains forming curved MGs on a polyimide by UV-laser processing, that are then transcribed onto a skinny movie manufactured from SBS. Subsequent, skeletal muscle cells known as myotubes, present in residing organisms, are aligned utilizing the MGs to realize an anisotropic curved muscle sample.
The researchers used this methodology to develop two completely different biohybrid actuators: one tethered to the glass substrate and the opposite untethered. Upon electrical stimulation, each actuators deformed by a twisting-like movement. Curiously, the biohybrid actuator when untethered, reworked right into a 3D free-standing construction, as a result of curved alignment of myotubes like a local sphincter.
“These outcomes signify that in comparison with conventional strategies, UV-laser con is a faster and simpler methodology for the fabrication of tunable MG patterns. This methodology raises intriguing alternatives for attaining extra life-like biohybrid actuators by guided alignment of myotubes,” remarks Dr. Fujie.
General, this examine demonstrates the potential of UV-laser processing for the fabrication of various anisotropic muscle tissue patterns, paving the best way for extra life-like biohybrid actuators able to complicated, versatile actions.
Extra info:
Hiroaki Mita et al, UV laser-processed microstructure for constructing biohybrid actuators with anisotropic motion, Biofabrication (2024). DOI: 10.1088/1758-5090/ad2080
Tokyo Institute of Expertise
Quotation:
A novel methodology for straightforward and fast fabrication of biomimetic robots with life-like motion (2024, February 26)
retrieved 26 February 2024
from https://techxplore.com/information/2024-02-method-easy-quick-fabrication-biomimetic.html
This doc is topic to copyright. Other than any honest dealing for the aim of personal examine or analysis, no
half could also be reproduced with out the written permission. The content material is offered for info functions solely.