ABOVE: Set up of the laser-guided RoboWorm system
REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION FROM X. DONG ET AL., SCIENCE ROBOTICS, 6:EABE3950, 2021
Roboticists have for the first time built an automated computational system for controlling the movements of a living multicellular organism—a genetically engineered worm (Caenorhabditis elegans) whose muscles contract in response to blue light. The laser-guided nematode, described last week (June 30) in Science Robotics, is called RoboWorm.
“Most of the biohybrid microrobots [in development] are mainly based on bacteria,” says Li Zhang, a nanomaterials and microrobotics researcher at the Chinese University of Hong Kong who was not involved in the research. But in this study, “they propose the use of C. elegans, a worm, as a robotic agent . . . [in a] very interesting and smart way.”
The natural world is an endless source of inspiration for human feats of engineering, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the ...
