Biohybrid fish

Scientists have created a "fish" with a tail from the muscle cells of the human heart

Lydia Sorokina, XX2 century

A team of scientists from Emory and Harvard Universities has developed something incredible — a biosynthetic "fish" whose fully autonomous movements reproduce heart contractions. The "fish" is partially made of cardiomyocytes extracted from human stem cells (cardiomyocytes are muscle cells of the heart).

The researchers claim that a biosynthetic ("biohybrid", by their own definition) creature can "swim" for more than 100 days. The synthetic "fish" has one layer of cardiomyocytes on each side of the caudal fin. Each side alternately shrinks and stretches. When stretched, the authors of the work specify, the device activates a protein that triggers contraction. The contraction, in turn, triggers stretching, and so on in a circle. This system is somewhat analogous to how our heart beats.

According to a Harvard bioengineering specialist Kevin Kit Parker, the ultimate goal of his team is to create an artificial heart that would be able to replace an organ with pathologies. To date, it is easy to create something resembling a human heart, but something that functions like a human heart is much more difficult ("I can build a model of a heart from Play-Doh plasticine, but this does not mean that I can make a heart," explains Parker). And the biosynthetic "fish" is a big step towards creating a complex synthetic organ. In addition, with the help of this development, it is possible to study heart diseases — for example, arrhythmia.

More information about the creation of biosynthetics can be found in the press release Biohybrid fish made from human cardiac cells swims like the heart beats.

Article by Lee et al. An autonomously swimming biohybrid fish designed with human cardiac biophysics is published in the journal Science.

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