Artificial jellyfish built from rat cells

 

http://www.nature.com/news/artificial-jellyfish-built-from-rat-cells-1.11046

 

Bioengineers have made an artificial jellyfish using silicone and muscle cells from a rats heart. The synthetic creature, dubbed a medusoid, looks like a flower with eight petals. When placed in an electric field, it pulses and swims exactly like its living counterpart.

 

Morphologically, weve built a jellyfish. Functionally, weve built a jellyfish. Genetically, this thing is a rat, says Kit Parker, a biophysicist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who led the work. The project is described today in Nature Biotechnology1.

 

 

Fascinating.

Edited July 23, 201213 yr by michel123456

So it's a Jellyrat? Sounds like it should be in the candy aisle next to gummi worms.

I wonder what the cells look like under the microscope? Do they look like typical heart cells?