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Xenobot whose name was taken from African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis), is basically a synthetic lifeform which is automatically designed by computers to perform some desired function and are built by combining together different biological tissues. Although xenobots are robots, organisms, or something else is highly debatable among the scientists.
Xenobot is less than 1 millimeter (0.039 inches) wide and made of just two things: skin cells and heart muscle cells, both of which are derived from stem cells harvested from early (blastula stage) frog embryos. The function of the skin cell is to provide rigid support and the heart cell perform the function of a small motor, contracting and expanding in volume to propel the xenobot forward. The outer shape of a xenobot's body, and its distribution of skin and heart cells, are reorganized automatically in response to simulation to perform a specific work, using a process of trial and error (also known as evolutionary algorithm). Xenobot can walk, swim, push pellets, carry payloads, and work together in a swarm to aggregate debris scattered along the surface of their dish into neat piles. They also have the capability to survive for weeks without food and heal themselves after lacerations.
Different kinds of motors and sensors have been included into xenobots. Instead of heart muscle, xenobots can grow patches of cilia which can be used as small oars for swimming. However, it is worth pointing out that cilia-driven xenobot locomotion is currently less controllable than cardiac-driven xenobot locomotion. An RNA molecule can also be introduced to xenobots which will give them molecular memory: if exposed to specific kind of light, they will glow a prespecified color when viewed under a fluorescent microscope.
At present , xenobots are mostly used as a scientific tool to understand how cells cooperate to build complex bodies during morphogenesis. However, the behavior and biocompatibility of current xenobots suggest several potential future applications to which they may be put to work.
Xenobots are composed solely of frog cells, which are biodegradable. And as group of xenobots tend to work together to push microscopic pellets in their dish into central piles, it is believed that future xenobots might be able do the same thing with microplastics in the ocean i.e. find and aggregate tiny bits of plastic into a large ball of plastic which can then be gathered by traditional boat or drone and brought to a recycling center. And the good news is, xenobots do not add additional pollution as they tend to work and degrade with time. They basically use the energy from fat and protein naturally stored in their tissue, which usually lasts about a week, after which they simply turn into dead skin cells.
In future they may be used in targeted drug delivery, xenobots could be made from a human patient’s own cells, which would bypass the immune response challenges of other kinds of micro-robotic delivery systems. Such xenobots has the potential to remove plaque from arteries, and with additional cell types and bioengineering, also locate and treat disease.
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