In recent years, scientists have repeatedly demonstrated that cells from various organisms can be reused to create biological robots, which represents an astonishing breakthrough in the field of synthetic biology.
Some types, such as anthrobots, use human cells that can self-assemble to form small, hairy structures capable of moving on their own. Others, such asthe xenobots have beencreated from cells of already dead frogswhich apparently cheated death by remaining capable of performing simple tasks and even self-replicating.
Now, in a new review published in Physiologythe authors discuss the implications of taking cells (from living or dead organisms) and essentially turning them into machines with entirely new functions. That is, this points to a biological “third state”one that does not fit neatly into the categories of life and death.
“The third state” challenges the way scientists typically understand cell behavior“say biologists Peter Noble and Alex Pozhitkov, co-authors of the study.
What really distinguishes these “organisms” is the fact that Biobots developed new functionsbecause “there are few cases where organisms change in ways that are not predetermined,” Noble’s team notes. While other transformations, such as the metamorphosis of caterpillars into butterflies, are radical, they are still part of a predetermined biological pathway. Cancer cells are also excluded, because they also do not exhibit new functions.
But here is the difference between biobots. Although the aforementioned anthrobots, for example, were designed from human lung cellswere somehow able to repair damaged neural cells placed nearby in a petri dish, which they were able to move to on their own using hair-like projections called cilia. The anthrobots, on the other hand, were not designed or programmed to do this – they simply did it on their own.
The xenobots also developed cilia-based mobility, which is novel, because in the frog cells from which they were derived, cilia are used to move mucus, not the cells themselves, according to the researchers. The xenobots alsoare capable of self-replicating without growingor essentially repair themselves.
“Taken together, these findings demonstrate the inherent plasticity of cellular systems and challenge the idea that cells and organisms can evolve only in predetermined ways,” the study confirms. third state suggests that the death of the organism may play an important role “how life changes over time.”
Both types of biobots do not “live” more than 60 days and biodegrade safely once they die. But “It is not clear how these reused cells can live so long after their organism dies. – adds Noble – We also don’t know the extent of its ability to develop new functions postmortem.”
This all sounds very spooky, but the medical and therapeutic possibilities that could be unlocked by exploring these questions could be game-changing. Robots created from a human patient’s cells could be programmed to repair damaged cellsadminister medications or remove cancerous tumors.
“A better understanding of how some cells continue to function and metamorphose into multicellular entities some time after the death of an organism is Promising for the advancement of personalized and preventive medicine“, the study concludes.