This jellyfish, which is able to swim freely, has been made with silicone polymer and muscle cells obtained from a rat heart. According to John Dabiri, a co-author of the study, the main difference between this creature and a real jellyfish ‘is that the real jellyfish can go and get nutrients and ours can’t.’ The experiment is aimed at building tissue for medical use.
Photo credit: Caltech and Harvard University
Janna C Nawroth, Hyungsuk Lee, Adam W Feinberg, Crystal M Ripplinger, Megan L McCain, Anna Grosberg, John O Dabiri, & Kevin Kit Parker (2012). A tissue-engineered jellyfish with biomimetic propulsion Nature Biotechnology DOI: 10.1038/nbt.2269
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