UPDATE: This webinar has been postponed.
A new date will be announced in due course.
Dear colleagues,
I am pleased to invite you to the next webinar in the Extreme Mechanics Letters (EML) Webinar Series.
Our upcoming seminar will be delivered by Prof. Ritu Raman (MIT):
"Tissue engineering biological actuators for biohybrid robots"
Date: Thursday, 24 September 2026
Many living organisms undergo conspicuous or abrupt changes in body structure, which is often accompanied by a behavioral change. Inspired by the natural metamorphosis, robotic systems can be designed as reconfigurable to be multifunctional. Here, a tissue-engineered transformable robot is developed, which can be remotely controlled to assume different mechanical structures for switching locomotive function.
Pumps are critical life-sustaining components for all animals. At the earliest stages of life, the tubular embryonic heart works as a valveless pump capable of generating unidirectional blood flow. Inspired by this elementary pump, we developed the first example of a biohybrid valveless pump-bot powered by engineered skeletal muscle. Our pump-bot consists of a soft hydrogel tube connected at both ends to a stiffer polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) scaffold, creating an impedance mismatch.
