Building biological systems from scratch traditionally involves copying the original, but simply mimicking an animal’s shape and muscle alignment isn't enough. In a new study published today (July 22) in Nature Biotechnology, a team from California Institute of Technology and Harvard University worked to understand how a jellyfish’s motions and interactions with the surrounding water lead to swimming, then used available bioengineered tissues to construct a jellyfish mimic that could move through the water just like the real thing.
"I was amazed at how effectively they allowed the vehicle to emulate swimming by natural organisms," said Jack Costello, a jellyfish expert from Providence College, Rhode Island, who was not involved in the study. "I was so impressed with the attention to getting all the important variables lined up so that they emulated the animals." Costello added that the technique could aid vehicle design, as well as help researchers make more ...
