Cyborg stingray swims toward light, breaks new ground


AP Photo/Steven Senne

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- The idea of taking apart a rat's heart and transforming it into a tissue-engineered stingray first came to Kevin Kit Parker during a trip to the New England Aquarium with his daughter.






"Bio-hybrid machines - things with synthetic parts and living materials - they're going to happen," Parker said. "I've spent time getting shot at and seen people getting shot. If I could build a cyborg so my buddy doesn't have to crawl into that ditch to look for an IED, I'd do that in a heartbeat."


The stingray-shaped robot, capable of paddling in water after exposure to blue light, has a gold skeleton, silicone fins and the heart muscle cells of a rat.

AP Photo/Steven Senne


"I had this whole idea of a laser-guided, tissue-engineered stingray made out of rat," Parker said. "He looked at me like a hog staring at a wristwatch. He was like, 'Have I trusted my career to this yahoo'? I think he thought I was unglued."

Indeed, the project to build the ray was more difficult and expensive - close to $1 million, according to Parker 7/8- than either of them imagined. A mechanical engineer by training, Park had to delve into molecular and cell biology. The team pulled experts from diverse fields, including an ichthyologist - someone who studies fish - to understand and help replicate a ray's muscle structure and biomechanics. Their work was published in Science last month.


"By putting in the light control they have a way of controlling the cell without a nervous system," said Long, who was not involved in the stingray research. "We used to control puppets with strings. Now we can do it with light."

