A team of scientists from Harvard University and Emory University in the United States has created the first fully autonomous biohybrid fish powered by heart muscle cells (cardiomyocytes). The robot fish, inspired by the zebra fish, can swim for more than 100 days by recreating the muscle contractions of a heart.

This creation is part of their work to create an artificial heart to replace a malfunctioning heart in a child. In addition, it will serve to study cardiovascular physiology and cardiovascular diseases.

"Most of the work in building heart tissues or hearts, including some work we've done, is focused on replicate the anatomical characteristics or replicating the simple beating of the heart in engineered fabrics. However, here we are drawing inspiration from the design of the biophysics of the heart, which is more difficult to do," Kit Parker, author of study. "Now, instead of using images of the heart as a model, we are identifying the main biophysical principles that make the heart work, using them as design criteria, and replicating them in a system, a living, swimming fish, in which it is much easier to see if we are successful."

The new development, according to the Green Severs portal proceeds previous research by Parker's Disease Biophysics Group, who by using heart muscle cells from mice have already built a biohybrid pump identical to a jellyfish (2012) and one identical to a ray (2016).

"I could build a heart model with model paste, but that doesn't mean I can build a heart," Kit Parker points out. "Neither effort is going to recapitulate the physics of a system that beats more than a billion times during its lifetime while simultaneously reconstructing its cells in real time. That's the challenge. That's where we're going to work."