Physicist Seth Fraden is developing a new generation of machines modeled on living creatures. His latest invention might one day treat disease by swimming its way through our blood.
As a kid, physicist Seth Fraden loved the movie “Fantastic Voyage,” about a microscopic submarine traveling through a human bloodstream. Almost 10 years ago, Fraden began a quest to create a robotic eel he could send on a similar journey, though it wouldn’t be for entertainment. The eel would be designed to deliver a drug to cells or genes. And, to capture the flexibility of the real sea creature, it would take the form of a gel that could glide through water.
Fraden recently announced he’d achieved the first couple of steps toward realizing his vision. In the journal Lab on a Chip, he reported that he and his team had created a model of a network of neurons using chemicals and microscopic containers. It’s this network that is primarily responsible for the eel’s trademark zigzag swimming motion.
Fraden next plans to embed his neural network in a gel. If everything goes as planned, the gel will actually move the same way an eel does while swimming.
The robotic eel is part of a larger effort by Fraden to build machines made from chemicals and other synthetic materials that behave like living organisms. “Animating inanimate matter” is how he describes it.
He’s not bringing inorganic matter to life. He’s building devices that act a lot like aspects and features of living creatures — clothing that mends itself using the same process our cells use to close a wound, for example, or nanobots that swim like fish through water pipes, carrying materials to repair pipe damage. Fraden’s artificial neural network is just the beginning.
![](https://www.nanoappsmedical.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/spacer.jpg)
Image Credit: BraneisNow
News This Week
The Silent Battle Within: How Your Organs Choose Between Mom and Dad’s Genes
Research reveals that selective expression of maternal or paternal X chromosomes varies by organ, driven by cellular competition. A new study published today (July 26) in Nature Genetics by the Lymphoid Development Group at the MRC [...]
Study identifies genes increasing risk of severe COVID-19
Whether or not a person becomes seriously ill with COVID-19 depends, among other things, on genetic factors. With this in mind, researchers from the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) and the University of Bonn, in [...]
Small regions of the brain can take micro-naps while the rest of the brain is awake and vice versa
Sleep and wake: They're totally distinct states of being that define the boundaries of our daily lives. For years, scientists have measured the difference between these instinctual brain processes by observing brain waves, with [...]
Redefining Consciousness: Small Regions of the Brain Can Take Micro-Naps While the Rest of the Brain Is Awake
The study broadly reveals how fast brain waves, previously overlooked, establish fundamental patterns of sleep and wakefulness. Scientists have developed a new method to analyze sleep and wake states by detecting ultra-fast neuronal activity [...]
AI Reveals Health Secrets Through Facial Temperature Mapping
Researchers have found that different facial temperatures correlate with chronic illnesses like diabetes and high blood pressure, and these can be detected using AI with thermal cameras. They highlight the potential of this technology [...]
Breakthrough in aging research: Blocking IL-11 extends lifespan and improves health in mice
In a recent study published in the journal Nature, a team of researchers used murine models and various pharmacological and genetic approaches to examine whether pro-inflammatory signaling involving interleukin (IL)-11, which activates signaling molecules such [...]
Promise for a universal influenza vaccine: Scientists validate theory using 1918 flu virus
New research led by Oregon Health & Science University reveals a promising approach to developing a universal influenza vaccine—a so-called "one and done" vaccine that confers lifetime immunity against an evolving virus. The study, [...]
New Projects Aim To Pioneer the Future of Neuroscience
One study will investigate the alterations in brain activity at the cellular level caused by psilocybin, the psychoactive substance found in “magic mushrooms.” How do neurons respond to the effects of magic mushrooms? What [...]
Leave A Comment