Artificial Jellyfish Built From Silicone and Rat Cells

ananyo writes "Bioengineers have made an artificial jellyfish using silicone and muscle cells from a rat's heart. The synthetic creature, dubbed a medusoid, looks like a flower with eight petals. When placed in an electric field, it pulses and swims exactly like its living counterpart. The team now plans to build a medusoid using human heart cells. The researchers have filed a patent to use their design, or something similar, as a platform for testing drugs (abstract). 'You've got a heart drug?' says Kit Parker, a biophysicist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who led the work. 'You let me put it on my jellyfish, and I'll tell you if it can improve the pumping.'" The video that accompanies the text is at once beautiful and creepy.

Comments

Overthinking it?

[wonkey_monkey]

'You've got a heart drug?' says Kit Parker, a biophysicist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who led the work. 'You let me put it on my jellyfish, and I'll tell you if it can improve the pumping.'"

Couldn't they, I dunno, just put it in a rat?

Re:Overthinking it?

[ananyo]

They'll do that too. This just lets you see one important aspect of the drug's activity really clearly and let's you get a little quantitative about the effects too. Admittedly, the really cool thing isn't the application but that they've built something that moves like a jellyfish when you apply an electric field across it in water.

Re:Offensive

[Anonymous Coward]

But as a viewer of porn I see some potential.

Re:Why?

[jehan60188]

the artificial jellyfish will (eventually) be made of human heart cells, which will allow for different research vectors for heart medicine

This is more than a heart-drug testing platform.

[bdwoolman]

The jelly moves through the water. In the heart the water moves through the jelly. Same basic action. Imagine the same device being built using human cells, especially cells from the potential patient, this chimeric pump is a first step, perhaps a major step, in building a bioelectric replacement heart or even an auxiliary heart. They sussed that bioelectric pumps work by sending an electrochemical wave front through the tissue. In principal a jellyfish and a heart have a lot in common. Especially in some people.

Re:Why?

[AlXtreme]

Why not?

This isn't about making artificial jellyfish, it's about creating new organisms made out of both organic and inorganic material. Regardless of use, I think this is rather awesome.

Re:Offensive

[Anonymous Coward]

That's funny because as a sane human being, I find creationists offensive.

Re:This is more than a heart-drug testing platform

[iroll]

Except that the heart's natural pacemakers aren't nervous, but specialized muscle cells:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SA_node

The nervous system is capable of speeding the main pacemaker, but that connection isn't necessary to keep the heart beating. And the pacemakers are redundant, set at different frequencies. The highest frequency pacemaker drives the rest; should it fail, the next slower one takes over.