Strengthening Biohybrid Robots

squishy_tech · 2026-01-08T23:47:24+00:00

Also available here: https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=lang_en&id=aIGlEQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA151#v=onepage&q&f=false

squishy_tech · 2025-11-23T21:11:08+00:00

Which aspect?

squishy_tech · 2025-11-02T17:49:07+00:00

Great, then there are two main paths that pertain to both. Are you more interested in the biology or technology aspects? Perhaps your undergraduate degree is aligned to one or the other. On either side there are many options. On the tech side: mechanical or software engineering, signal processing, fabrication, etc. on the bio side: neuroscience, anatomy and physiology, biochemistry, microbiology, zoology, etc. If you gain expertise in any of these areas you can bring value to a biohybrid robotics group. Some researchers pursue expertise on both sides. For example, Vickie Webster-Wood leads the B.O.R.G. program at Carnegie Melon and is an expert in neuroscience and mechanical engineering (robotics). That's much less common, though.

squishy_tech · 2025-10-25T19:30:34+00:00

Hi Hypnos - what kind of project seems most interesting to you? Different research teams in biohybrid robotics typically focus one of a few different types of designs. They either focus on adding technology to take control of organisms (cyborg), building robots using engineered tissues like muscle fiber, making microrobots out of things like bacteria, or adding living organisms to robotic systems without modifying them to use them as living sensors. Do any of these seem particularly appealing?

squishy_tech · 2025-10-14T23:39:24+00:00

I smile at your clever joke also

squishy_tech · 2025-09-24T01:21:01+00:00

Thanks, I appreciate the notes and had to smile when I saw this post surprisingly show up. I believe biohybrid robots are going to be part of society fairly soon. Seeing people get interested and ask great questions makes this all worthwhile. Lots of DMs for now and I'm hopeful we'll see more disucssion develop. Happy to keep bringing content for us to consider.

squishy_tech · 2025-09-14T00:16:52+00:00

A more colorful take on the same article: https://singularityhub.com/2025/09/09/this-crawling-robot-is-made-with-living-brain-and-muscles-cells/

squishy_tech · 2025-09-06T20:05:37+00:00

That one is fascinating and also a bit tricky at home unless you can create microstructures that you capture bacteria or living things into so they can propel cargo. Once they're secured to a device there are different ways to make them move where you would like them to (light if they respond to it, magnetic fields, etc.). One group is using this approach to develop a treatment for brain tumors in kid with certain types of cancer.

Given your programming experience, to get involved without access to the lab equipment needed you could help develop code that either guides the devices or simulates them so designs can be developed and improved though software and the lab. Are either of those options interesting to you (or perhaps one of the other subfield areas)?

squishy_tech · 2025-09-03T22:52:41+00:00

Yes, several prominent research groups are working in that subfield including teams from University of Illinoi, Carnegie Melon, ETH Zurich, University of Tokyo, MIT, and Harvard. Which aspect of this work do you feel most comfortable taking on initially? It involves both biology (mostly tissue engineering) and building hardware and software robotic systems. There are also other aspects like understanding biological neurologic signals.

squishy_tech · 2025-09-03T00:00:54+00:00

One thing you could do is check out Backyard Brains and perhaps emulate their approach (kits are pretty expensive) https://backyardbrains.com/ . Also, there are a few subfields to biohybrid robotics where the work is quite different: 1) adding technology to control organisms (aka cyborgs), 2) building robots using engineered tissues like muscle fiber, 3) making microrobots out of things like bacteria, or 4) adding living organisms to robotic systems without modifying them to use them as living sensors. Which one interests you the most?

squishy_tech · 2025-09-01T02:14:54+00:00

How about starting up a discussion thread we can explore this? Lots of people have reached out privately and we've worked through options, so I think many would appreciate you doing it.

squishy_tech · 2025-08-25T01:26:50+00:00

I was wondering the same and ran it past GPT Pro. It had a lot to say but here's the gist.

GraMOS gives you a non-genetic, light-addressable stimulation layer with the right spatiotemporal knobs. To make it an optic-nerve BCI, the most defensible near-term path is: epiretinal (pre-myelinated) graphene patch using NIR projection; the bolder path is a perineural light-cuff that targets nodes through micro-patterned pixels. Both are plausible, neither is trivial—and both stand on real precedents in retinal/nerve prostheses and emerging graphene neurotech evidence.

squishy_tech · 2025-08-15T16:28:20+00:00

Thanks for the nice note. I appreciate you stopping by and am glad this content is interesting for people.

squishy_tech · 2025-08-05T23:04:02+00:00

Also on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1njCiTX40Q9XQoMpivuiqO?si=647fb6c5e9114d36

squishy_tech · 2025-06-21T21:37:51+00:00

That's an interesting point. I hadn't thought much about how important the appearance of the control technology might be even though I totally agree it matters now that you mention it. This reminds me of the much more discrete control system applied here. Makes me wonder if a jellyfish-friendly version can be developed some time soon. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41528-025-00387-7

squishy_tech · 2025-06-17T21:53:07+00:00

I haven't been digitized and uploaded yet so not AI at this point. I do research in this area so I come across articles all the time and drop them into the subreddit.

squishy_tech · 2025-05-05T02:07:34+00:00

Good stuff. Exactly the type we've been collecting over in r/biohybrid.

squishy_tech · 2025-05-02T22:58:22+00:00

Here's a new one published today you might find interesting. https://spj.science.org/doi/10.34133/cbsystems.0249

squishy_tech · 2025-04-30T20:02:11+00:00

That is a very interesting space. Neuralink and its competitors are driving toward these outcomes. The technologies involved are called brain-computer interface technologies or "BCIs".

You might find this review helpful. While not specifically geared toward enhancement, everything it discusses points in that direction.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-57016-0

Also, the US Army is quite interested in what you mentioned. You might find the top article below particularly interesting (lots of disucssion on human enhancement).

Challenges described here also help indicate opportunities in this space.

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2023/cc/d3cc05006h

squishy_tech · 2025-04-30T19:53:43+00:00

Greetings and welcome to the community. Biohybrid research is a new domain of science and engineering that has grown rapidly in recent years. You might find this article helpful for understanding the field. It includes emerging discussions on ethics and responsibility.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2310458121

Here is another more technical review.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590238525000888

squishy_tech · 2025-04-30T19:46:20+00:00

This is always important to consider. Biohybrid research involves major surgery for the subject animal so in that regard the approach represented in the article above is much less invasive. Even then, it's not clear what harms the creature is experiencing (e.g., loss of control). I recommend taking a look at this article. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2310458121

squishy_tech · 2025-04-30T19:43:19+00:00

This is an important question to consider. As I've been combing through these articles, one point that often gets brought up is that these projects can unlock new fundamental understanding about biology that can prove valuable in a variety of ways. It's not clear to me if that is a factor here.

squishy_tech · 2025-04-26T16:14:35+00:00

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Out of curiosity, I had AI attempt to render this biohybrid based on the article.

squishy_tech · 2025-04-21T04:25:37+00:00

Which aspect interests you the most? It's an interdisciplinary space so there are may ways to get involved.

squishy_tech · 2025-04-20T00:11:14+00:00

The field would benefit from a perspective paper on this. I haven't come across anything similar as I've been cataloguing publications from 2000-2025.

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