Levin believes that his cell-bots disclose something profound about how cells and development work. Photograph: Alonso Nichols/Tufts University Michael Levin of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University thinks that xenobots could point the way to important discoveries not only in developmental biology but in other fields concerned with the emergence of complex behaviors from collections of autonomous parts. And they hinted at how cells might be persuaded to develop new collective goals and assume shapes totally unlike those that normally develop from an embryo. While the prefix was derived from the Latin name of the African clawed frogs ( Xenopus laevis) that supplied the cells, it also seemed fitting because of its relation to xenos, the ancient Greek for “strange.” These were indeed strange living robots: tiny masterpieces of cell craft fashioned by human design. The team dubbed these structures xenobots. The resulting cell clusters showed the predicted ability to move over a surface in a nonrandom way. The researchers let the cell clusters assemble in the right proportions and then used micro-manipulation tools to move or eliminate cells-essentially poking and carving them into shapes like those recommended by the algorithm. Original story reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent publication of the Simons Foundation whose mission is to enhance public understanding of science by covering research developments and trends in mathematics and the physical and life sciences.
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February 2023
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