Journal
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
Volume 5, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms4081
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Funding
- National Science Foundation (NSF), Science and Technology Center on Emergent Behaviors in Integrated Cellular Systems (EBICS) Grant [CBET-0939511]
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Many microorganisms, including spermatozoa and forms of bacteria, oscillate or twist a hair-like flagella to swim. At this small scale, where locomotion is challenged by large viscous drag, organisms must generate time-irreversible deformations of their flagella to produce thrust. To date, there is no demonstration of a self propelled, synthetic flagellar swimmer operating at low Reynolds number. Here we report a microscale, biohybrid swimmer enabled by a unique fabrication process and a supporting slender-body hydrodynamics model. The swimmer consists of a polydimethylsiloxane filament with a short, rigid head and a long, slender tail on which cardiomyocytes are selectively cultured. The cardiomyocytes contract and deform the filament to propel the swimmer at 5-10 mu m s(-1), consistent with model predictions. We then demonstrate a two-tailed swimmer swimming at 81 mu m s(-1). This small-scale, elementary biohybrid swimmer can serve as a platform for more complex biological machines.
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