The word ‘robot’ evokes images of 人-like manmade metallic machine (humanoid) designed and programmed to automatically perform some tasks for us. However, robots (or bots) can be of any shape or size and can be made of any material (including biological materials such as living cells) depending on design and functional requirements. It may not have any physical form as in the case of Siri or Alexa的。机器人是经过合理设计的人工制品或机器，具有自主性并执行特定任务。
Biological robots (or biobots) use living 细胞 or tissues as fabrication material. Like all robots, biobots also are programmable machines, display autonomy and perform specific tasks. These are a special class of active living and motile synthetic structures.
活组织 本身，不是机器人。它们是动物的一部分。当活细胞从正常的约束中解放出来并通过人为地组合和塑造细胞以显示特定的行为而被编程为所需的形式和功能时，它们就变成了机器人。
异种机器人 是 2020 年在实验室使用来自一种名为“青蛙”的青蛙胚胎的卵细胞制造的第一个全生物生物机器人 非洲爪蟾 （因此得名 Xenobots）。它是第一个活的、自我修复、自我复制的人造有机体。活细胞被用作构建块，从胚胎其余部分的正常限制中解放出来，产生一种新形式的人工生命，其形态和特征是人工“设计”的。因此，Xenobot 是一种活的合成有机体。 Xenobots 的开发表明，源自两栖动物胚胎的细胞可以通过释放自然限制而被编程为所需的形式和功能。然而，尚不清楚是否可以用非两栖动物或成体细胞制造生物机器人。
Scientists have now reported successful construction of biobots using adult cells from non-embryonic 人 tissue with capabilities beyond Xenobots. This biobot has been named ‘人类机器人’ because of its 人 起源。
Since Xenobots were derived from amphibian embryonic cells by moulding cells individually, the research team began with testing if ability to give rise to biobots is limited to these amphibian cells or, other non-amphibian, non-embryonic adult cells also can generate biobots? Further, if the seed cells need to be necessarily sculpted individually to generate biobots or if coaxing of initial seed cells also can lead to self-construction of biobots? For this, instead of embryonic tissues, the researchers used adult, somatic cells derived from 人 lung epithelium and were able to generate novel, multicellular, self- constructing, motile living structures without manual sculping or using any external form-giving machinery. The method used is scalable. Swarms of biobots in parallel were produced which moved via cilia- driven propulsion and lived for 45–60 days. Interestingly, it was also observed that Anthrobots moved across breaks in neuronal monolayers and induced efficient healing of defects in vitro.
人类机器人的合成 is significant because it demonstrates that plasticity of cells to give rise to biobots is not limited to embryonic or amphibian cells. It has shown that adult somatic 人 wild cells without any genetic modification can form novel biobots without any external form-giving machinery.
Anthrobots 是对 Xenobots 的改进，也是相关技术的进步，对于临床用途的复杂组织的生产具有重大影响。 再生医学。未来，有可能为每位患者生产个性化的机器人，并将其部署在体内而不引起任何免疫反应。
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参考文献：
- 布莱克斯顿 D. 等 2023.生物机器人：新兴跨学科领域的视角。软机器人。 2023 年 674 月。686-XNUMX。数字编号： https://doi.org/10.1089/soro.2022.0142
- 古穆斯卡娅，G. et al. 2023. Motile Living Biobots Self-Construct from Adult 以人为本 Somatic Progenitor Seed Cells. Advanced Science 2303575. published: 30 November 2023 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202303575
- Tufts University 2023. News – Scientists Build Tiny Biological Robots from 以人为本 细胞。 https://now.tufts.edu/2023/11/30/scientists-build-tiny-biological-robots-human-cells
- 易卜拉欣哈尼·莫·R.和 Levin M.，2021。合成生命机器：生命的新窗口。 i科学视角。第 24 卷，第 5 期，102505，21 年 2021 月 XNUMX 日。DOI： https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2021.102505
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