title: A tissue-engineered jellyfish with biomimetic propulsion.
abstract: Reverse engineering of biological form and function requires hierarchical design over several orders of space and time. Recent advances in the mechanistic understanding of biosynthetic compound materials, computer-aided design approaches in molecular synthetic biology 4,5 and traditional soft robotics, and increasing aptitude in generating structural and chemical micro environments that promote cellular self-organization have enhanced the ability to recapitulate such hierarchical architecture in engineered biological systems. Here we combined these capabilities in a systematic design strategy to reverse engineer a muscular pump. We report the construction of a freely swimming jellyfish from chemically dissociated rat tissue and silicone polymer as a proof of concept. The constructs, termed 'medusoids', were designed with computer simulations and experiments to match key determinants of jellyfish propulsion and feeding performance by quantitatively mimicking structural design, stroke kinematics and animal-fluid interactions. The combination of the engineering design algorithm with quantitative benchmarks of physiological performance suggests that our strategy is broadly applicable to reverse engineering of muscular organs or simple life forms that pump to survive.
authors: Division of Biology, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA.
authors: Janna C
authors: JC
authors: Nawroth
authors: Hyungsuk
authors: H
authors: Lee
authors: Adam W
authors: AW
authors: Feinberg
authors: Crystal M
authors: CM
authors: Ripplinger
authors: Megan L
authors: ML
authors: McCain
authors: Anna
authors: A
authors: Grosberg
authors: John O
authors: JO
authors: Dabiri
authors: Kevin Kit
authors: KK
authors: Parker
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D032701:Biomimetics / Q000379:methods*; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D008124:Locomotion / Q000502:physiology; D032383:Myocytes, Cardiac / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology; D051381:Rats; D037401:Scyphozoa / Q000502:physiology*; D058615:Synthetic Biology / Q000379:methods*; D023822:Tissue Engineering / Q000379:methods*