ETH Scientists Develop Biohybrid Actuators with Lab-Grown Muscles for Visible Movement
ETH scientists set to bring Terminator-style robots to life with lab-grown muscles
Scientists at ETH Zurich have created robot actuators using living skeletal muscle tissue grown from mouse cells, integrated with 3D-printed hydrogel scaffolds. The biohybrid actuators, designed through computer simulations, can flex visibly and perform actions like jumping and swimming. While the system shows promise, challenges remain in long-term operation due to nutrient requirements and tissue variability.
ETH Zurich researchers have developed biohybrid actuators combining lab-grown mouse skeletal muscle with 3D-printed hydrogel scaffolds, achieving visible movement through optimized muscle-scaffold integration. The system demonstrates enhanced range of motion compared to prior systems, though long-term viability remains limited by nutrient dependency and tissue variability.
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Reported numbers
range of motion
≤11
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acturing conditions, which was fed back into the computer simulation. The result was the creation of what the researchers call bioactuators, each about 1.5 centimetres long. These actuators consist of living muscle tissue and an artificial hydrogel scaffold. They can flex so strongly that the movement is visible to the naked eye. The researchers report a range of motion up to eleven times greater than that of earlier
Open source S8length of actuators
≈1.5
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acturing conditions, which was fed back into the computer simulation. The result was the creation of what the researchers call bioactuators, each about 1.5 centimetres long. These actuators consist of living muscle tissue and an artificial hydrogel scaffold. They can flex so strongly that the movement is visible to the naked eye. The researchers report a range of motion up to eleven times greater than that of earlier
Open source S8distance covered per second
6.2
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hape. For her, this experiment shows how important the interaction between the living muscle and the soft artificial scaffold is. With a single contraction, the actuator lifts itself about five millimetres off the bottom of the dish, a third of its body length. A walking version covers 6.2 millimetres per second, faster relative to its body length than any walking biohybrid robot reported so far. These small robots c
Open source S10height lifted off the bottom
≈5
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hape. For her, this experiment shows how important the interaction between the living muscle and the soft artificial scaffold is. With a single contraction, the actuator lifts itself about five millimetres off the bottom of the dish, a third of its body length. A walking version covers 6.2 millimetres per second, faster relative to its body length than any walking biohybrid robot reported so far. These small robots c
Open source S10scaffold printing time
≈1 minutes
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produced the greatest possible movement of the entire component. The researchers then built the computer-designed muscle actuators in the laboratory and tested them. The scaffolds were 3D-printed with light using a technique called xolography, which takes about one minute per scaffold. “Of course, it was an iterative process,” Balciunaite recalls. The experiments provided information on material properties and manuf
Open source S7
- paper: not_reported
- code: not_reported
- weights: not_reported
- dataset: not_reported
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Automatically extracted; no manual editorial approval recorded.
acturing conditions, which was fed back into the computer simulation. The result was the creation of what the researchers call bioactuators, each about 1.5 centimetres long. These actuators consist of living muscle tissue and an artificial hydrogel scaffold. They can flex so strongly that the movement is visible to the naked eye. The researchers report a range of motion up to eleven times greater than that of earlier
Open source S8
hape. For her, this experiment shows how important the interaction between the living muscle and the soft artificial scaffold is. With a single contraction, the actuator lifts itself about five millimetres off the bottom of the dish, a third of its body length. A walking version covers 6.2 millimetres per second, faster relative to its body length than any walking biohybrid robot reported so far. These small robots c
Open source S10
produced the greatest possible movement of the entire component. The researchers then built the computer-designed muscle actuators in the laboratory and tested them. The scaffolds were 3D-printed with light using a technique called xolography, which takes about one minute per scaffold. “Of course, it was an iterative process,” Balciunaite recalls. The experiments provided information on material properties and manuf
Open source S7
issue can contract, but the movement is often so slight that it is barely visible. This poses a problem for biohybrid robots designed to move using living muscles. Researchers at ETH Zurich have now demonstrated that it is not just the amount of muscle tissue that matters, but above all how the muscle and the artificial scaffold interact. Their bioactuators combine living skeletal muscle tissue, grown from mouse musc
Open source S3
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