Hardware Podcasts

48. How Robots Can Reproduce and Create Organs

The Next Byte Podcast · 14 Dec 2021 · 22m

AI in practice: 2 real uses of AI described

What this episode covers

Hosts Daniel and Forbode discuss two recent advances in bio-engineering: the creation of self-replicating 'Xenobots' by a team from the University of Vermont, Tufts University, and Harvard, and new tissue engineering techniques from EPFL. They explain how Xenobots are assembled from African frog stem cells and designed via AI simulation to swim and reproduce, raising ethical questions about playing God. They then detail how EPFL researchers use mechanobiology and microactuators to control the shape of epithelial tissues, solving the problem of collapse and enabling potential vascularization for medical use.

AI in practice

Where this conversation describes AI being used to build or deliver a product. Part of the AI in practice tracker.

DesignAI simulation

An AI simulation generated possible geometric designs for Xenobots based on desired movement patterns, allowing researchers to select and assemble the working prototypes.

“what they ended up doing was developing an AI simulation that would help them design so that you say, you know, I want this size, this shape, and I want to be able to move in this pattern. And the AI will generate a few possible designs and you can assemble those and then see which ones work.”

Speaker 1 · Hear it at 3:48

Engineering & simulationdigital twin

A digital twin of the experimental setup provided feedback on which physical experiments to conduct, optimizing the process of understanding cell behavior under mechanical stress.

“They made a digital twin of their experimental setup, and they had this, uh, the digital twin give them feedback on what experiments to conduct in the real world that would probably give him the most like interesting insight.”

Speaker 2 · Hear it at 14:03

Most relevant to

makers and hobbyists

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
University of Vermont, Tufts University, Harvard, EPFL
Products
Xenobots

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