By Dilara Zengin and Iclal Turan
WASHINGTON (AA) – A Turkish scientist has led a study creating tiny biological robots from adult human cells to help heal wounds or damaged tissue.
Gizem Gumuskaya, who just completed her PhD studies at Tufts Biology Department and Harvard University Wyss Institute, created a new type of biological robots called “anthrobots,” which she describes as the first fully-cellular living architectures designed to build themselves from single cells into multicellular motile machines.
Each one of these multicellular, self-constructing robots can be derived from a single human cell in two weeks, she told Anadolu in an interview, adding that they can do useful work like repairing damaged neurons.
“By bringing features that so far had exclusively been attributed to natural structures, such as self-construction and embodied computation into human-made machines, we managed to create synthetic biobots carrying a human genome, with the goal of one day injecting them into humans to do useful work in the body, like chasing down pathogens or clearing plaque from the arteries,” she explained.
She said “anthrobots” can also be used in the field of architecture to develop new environmentally friendly construction methods.
Gumuskaya, who earned a degree in architecture from Istanbul Technical University before continuing her studies in biology, said “anthrobots” are self-constructing synthetic living structures by design.
They can be used in many areas in medicine, including healing damaged nerve cells, she said.
“These robots can build larger structures by holding on to each other. These structures act as bridges, and when placed over damaged nerve tissue, they enable the nerves to heal under that bridge, and this is done in a very short time, like three days,” she explained.
In the future, these robots might be used in the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, she added.
- From architecture to biology
After graduating in Istanbul, Gumuskaya moved to the US to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where she earned a degree in design and computation, followed by a second in electrical engineering and computer science.
During her graduate studies at MIT, Gumuskaya discovered the field of synthetic biology, and realized that nature too can be conceived of as a design medium, by building new biological structures through altering the morphogenetic code stored in the cells’ DNA.
“As a designer, this captured my imagination, and from there on, I became completely immersed in the field of biology,” she continued.
She later started her doctoral studies with biology professor Michael Levin at Tufts and Harvard Universities, and completed her PhD studies last week after five years of hard work.
The recent study has received “a string of positive reactions” from scientists in the US, especially the medical community, she said, while adding that it is a small but significant step for the field of architecture.
For the next step of the study, Gumuskaya said they will conduct follow-up experiments, working toward trying to get arrival from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) after experiments on more complex human disease models and damaged tissues.