“When we put these building blocks together, we can capitalize on their individual functionalities and make something new to serve whatever purpose we want,” said Caroline Cvetkovic, a postdoctoral bioengineer from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, one of the 10 research institutions on the NSF project, which is called Emergent Behaviors of Integrated Cellular Systems (EBICS).
The microswimmer, a cell-based robot built by bioengineer Taher Saif and colleagues, consists of beating heart cells arranged on a flexible microfilament string, and it propels by flexing and extending, much like the tale of sperm. Image: Brian Williams, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
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