A group of American scientists made up of biologists, Michael Leving and Douglas Blackiston, and robotics experts, Josh Bongard and Sam Kiregman have developed a «biorobot» that is made up of African nail frog cells and has a life of one week. The cells that were used were from the cardiac system and its skin. The creation of these biological robots is very important because they could be very useful in the field of medicine.
The devices created have an approximate height of one millimeter. Several models have been developed to determine which have greater functionality in collectivity. So far the functions that each robot has been to move in only one direction or in circles and capture objects forming holes. Some of them can work together to transport objects. Although they are resistant «machines» and regenerate after damage, they can only last a week since their cells cannot reproduce and are biodegradable.
Biorobots have been a great finding since, thinking on a small scale, they could be used to detect cancer tumors, clear clogged arteries or administer drugs from inside the patient. In addition, with greater technological development they could be part of microsurgery regenerating tissues. Other problems that xenobots could help us with are detecting and repairing defects before and after birth, repairing injuries due to trauma or regenerative diseases and even slowing down the aging of human beings.
Its use is also being considered to solve other problems such as pollution as they could be used to clean plastics that can be found in the ocean and even clean areas corrupted by toxic waste. Likewise, being machines that do not have polluting components such as plastic or steel, they are more ecological and safe for human health.