For 108 days a biohybrid fish made from the cells of a human heart swam in an artificial sea, its movement powered by 38 million beats. That’s the sort of weird poetry science has led us to. Here’s more from MOTHERBOARD:
By emulating the contractions of a beating heart, this “biohybrid” fish continuously swam for up to 108 days, a breakthrough that sheds light on cardiac disease and could eventually pave the way toward the development of artificial hearts for transplants. Of course, aside from those worthy applications, it’s also just a completely wild achievement: Franken-fish made out of human heart cells that can swim for over three months….
As mind-boggling as it may seem, this type of experiment is completely in the wheelhouse of the Disease Biophysics Group at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). Led by Kit Parker, the Tarr Family Professor of Bioengineering and Applied Physics at Harvard, the group has previously developed biohybrid stingrays and jellyfish from rat heart cells, among other bioengineering innovations.
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