Biomimetic Approaches Toward Smart Bio-hybrid Systems

Real-time hardware emulation of neural cultures: A comparative study of in vitro, in silico and in duris silico models

Biological neural networks are well known for their capacity to process information with extremely low power consumption. Fields such as Artificial Intelligence, with high computational costs, are seeking for alternatives inspired in biological systems. An inspiring alternative is to implement hardware architectures that replicate the behavior of biological neurons but with the flexibility in programming capabilities of an electronic device, all combined with a relatively low operational cost. To advance in this quest, here we analyze the capacity of the HEENS hardware architecture to operate in a similar manner as an in vitro neuronal network grown in the laboratory. For that, we considered data of spontaneous activity in living neuronal cultures of about 400 neurons and compared their collective dynamics and functional behavior with those obtained from direct numerical simulations (in silico) and hardware implementations (in duris silico). The results show that HEENS is capable to mimic both the in vitro and in silico systems with high efficient-cost ratio, and on different network topological designs. Our work shows that compact low-cost hardware implementations are feasible, opening new avenues for future, highly efficient neuromorphic devices and advanced human-machine interfacing.

Bioinspired and Multifunctional Tribological Materials for Sliding, Erosive, Machining, and Energy-Absorbing Conditions: A Review

Friction, wear, and the consequent energy dissipation pose significant challenges in systems with moving components, spanning various domains, including nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS/MEMS) and bio-MEMS (microrobots), hip prostheses (biomaterials), offshore wind and hydro turbines, space vehicles, solar mirrors for photovoltaics, triboelectric generators, etc. Nature-inspired bionic surfaces offer valuable examples of effective texturing strategies, encompassing various geometric and topological approaches tailored to mitigate frictional effects and related functionalities in various scenarios. By employing biomimetic surface modifications, for example, roughness tailoring, multifunctionality of the system can be generated to efficiently reduce friction and wear, enhance load-bearing capacity, improve self-adaptiveness in different environments, improve chemical interactions, facilitate biological interactions, etc. However, the full potential of bioinspired texturing remains untapped due to the limited mechanistic understanding of functional aspects in tribological/biotribological settings. The current review extends to surface engineering and provides a comprehensive and critical assessment of bioinspired texturing that exhibits sustainable synergy between tribology and biology. The successful evolving examples from nature for surface/tribological solutions that can efficiently solve complex tribological problems in both dry and lubricated contact situations are comprehensively discussed. The review encompasses four major wear conditions: sliding, solid-particle erosion, machining or cutting, and impact (energy absorbing). Furthermore, it explores how topographies and their design parameters can provide tailored responses (multifunctionality) under specified tribological conditions. Additionally, an interdisciplinary perspective on the future potential of bioinspired materials and structures with enhanced wear resistance is presented.

Advances in In Vitro Models of Neuromuscular Junction: Focusing on Organ-on-a-Chip, Organoids, and Biohybrid Robotics

The neuromuscular junction (NMJ) is a peripheral synaptic connection between presynaptic motor neurons and postsynaptic skeletal muscle fibers that enables muscle contraction and voluntary motor movement. Many traumatic, neurodegenerative, and neuroimmunological diseases are classically believed to mainly affect either the neuronal or the muscle side of the NMJ, and treatment options are lacking. Recent advances in novel techniques have helped develop in vitro physiological and pathophysiological models of the NMJ as well as enable precise control and evaluation of its functions. This paper reviews the recent developments in in vitro NMJ models with 2D or 3D cultures, from organ-on-a-chip and organoids to biohybrid robotics. Related derivative techniques are introduced for functional analysis of the NMJ, such as the patch-clamp technique, microelectrode arrays, calcium imaging, and stimulus methods, particularly optogenetic-mediated light stimulation, microelectrode-mediated electrical stimulation, and biochemical stimulation. Finally, the applications of the in vitro NMJ models as disease models or for drug screening related to suitable neuromuscular diseases are summarized and their future development trends and challenges are discussed.

Biohybrid Soft Robots Powered by Myocyte: Current Progress and Future Perspectives

Myocyte-driven robots, a type of biological actuator that combines myocytes with abiotic systems, have gained significant attention due to their high energy efficiency, sensitivity, biocompatibility, and self-healing capabilities. These robots have a unique advantage in simulating the structure and function of human tissues and organs. This review covers the research progress in this field, detailing the benefits of myocyte-driven robots over traditional methods, the materials used in their fabrication (including myocytes and extracellular materials), and their properties and manufacturing techniques. Additionally, the review explores various control methods, robot structures, and motion types. Lastly, the potential applications and key challenges faced by myocyte-driven robots are discussed and summarized.

Targeted delivery of Dbait by an artificial extracellular vesicle for improved radiotherapy sensitivity of esophageal cancer

Intensification of radiotherapy has been shown to be an effective way for improving the therapeutic efficacy of radiation sensitive malignancies such as esophageal cancer (EC). The application of DNA Bait (Dbait), a type of DNA repair inhibitor, is an emerging strategy for radiosensitization. In this study, a Eca-109 cancerous cytomembrane-cloaked biomimetic drug delivery system (DDS), CMEC-Dbait, was designed and successfully fabricated, for targeted delivery of Dbait. Our systematic evaluation demonstrated that the ingenious artificial gastrointestinal extracellular vesicle owns neat spherical structure, proper particle size (154.6±5.5 nm) and surface charge (2.6±0.3 mV), favourable biocompatibility and immunocompatibility, being conducive to in vivo drug delivery. Besides, Eca-109 cytomembrane coating endowed CMEC-Dbait with effective targeting ability to homologous EC cells. Owing to these advantages, the biomimetic DDS was proved to be a potent radiosensitizer in vitro, indicated by remarkably reduced cell viability and enhanced cellular apoptosis by the combination therapy of radiation and CMEC-Dbait. The result was validated in vivo using mouse xenograft models of EC, the results illustrated that radiotherapy plus CMEC-Dbait significantly suppressed tumor growth and prolonged survival of tumor bearing mice. Western blotting results showed that CMEC-Dbait can significantly inhibit DNA damage repair signaling pathways by simulating DNA double-strand breaks both in and ex vivo. In conclusion, the versatile biomimetic CMEC-Dbait was characterized of low toxicity, excellent biocompatibility and satisfactory drug delivery efficiency, which is confirmed to be an ideal radiosensitizer for homologous cancer and merits further investigation in both pre-clinical and clinical studies.

Three-dimensional bioprinting: A cutting-edge tool for designing and fabricating engineered living materials

The design of engineered living materials (ELMs) is an emerging field developed from synthetic biology and materials science principles. ELMs are multi-scale bulk materials that combine the properties of self-healing and organism adaptability with the designed physicochemical or mechanical properties for functional applications in various fields, including therapy, electronics, and architecture. Among the many ELM design and manufacturing methods, three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting stands out for its precise control over the structure of the fabricated constructs and the spatial distribution of cells. In this review, we summarize the progress in the field, cell type and material selection, and the latest applications of 3D bioprinting to manufacture ELMs, as well as their advantages and limitations, hoping to deepen our understanding and provide new insights into ELM design. We believe that 3D bioprinting will become an important development direction and provide more contributions to this field.

Smart Film Actuators for Biomedical Applications

Taking inspiration from the extremely flexible motion abilities in natural organisms, soft actuators have emerged in the past few decades. Particularly, smart film actuators (SFAs) demonstrate unique superiority in easy fabrication, tailorable geometric configurations, and programmable 3D deformations. Thus, they are promising in many biomedical applications, such as soft robotics, tissue engineering, delivery system, and organ-on-a-chip. In this review, the latest achievements of SFAs applied in biomedical fields are summarized. The authors start by introducing the fabrication techniques of SFAs, then shift to the topology design of SFAs, followed by their material selections and distinct actuating mechanisms. After that, their biomedical applications are categorized in practical aspects. The challenges and prospects of this field are finally discussed. The authors believe that this review can boost the development of soft robotics, biomimetics, and human healthcare.

Elastomer-Hydrogel Systems: From Bio-Inspired Interfaces to Medical Applications

Novel advanced biomaterials have recently gained great attention, especially in minimally invasive surgical techniques. By applying sophisticated design and engineering methods, various elastomer-hydrogel systems (EHS) with outstanding performance have been developed in the last decades. These systems composed of elastomers and hydrogels are very attractive due to their high biocompatibility, injectability, controlled porosity and often antimicrobial properties. Moreover, their elastomeric properties and bioadhesiveness are making them suitable for soft tissue engineering. Herein, we present the advances in the current state-of-the-art design principles and strategies for strong interface formation inspired by nature (bio-inspiration), the diverse properties and applications of elastomer-hydrogel systems in different medical fields, in particular, in tissue engineering. The functionalities of these systems, including adhesive properties, injectability, antimicrobial properties and degradability, applicable to tissue engineering will be discussed in a context of future efforts towards the development of advanced biomaterials.

Printable Smart Materials and Devices: Strategies and Applications

Smart materials are a kind of functional materials which can sense and response to environmental conditions or stimuli from optical, electrical, magnetic mechanical, thermal, and chemical signals, etc. Patterning of smart materials is the key to achieving large-scale arrays of functional devices. Over the last decades, printing methods including inkjet printing, template-assisted printing, and 3D printing are extensively investigated and utilized in fabricating intelligent micro/nano devices, as printing strategies allow for constructing multidimensional and multimaterial architectures. Great strides in printable smart materials are opening new possibilities for functional devices to better serve human beings, such as wearable sensors, integrated optoelectronics, artificial neurons, and so on. However, there are still many challenges and drawbacks that need to be overcome in order to achieve the controllable modulation between smart materials and device performance. In this review, we give an overview on printable smart materials, printing strategies, and applications of printed functional devices. In addition, the advantages in actual practices of printing smart materials-based devices are discussed, and the current limitations and future opportunities are proposed. This review aims to summarize the recent progress and provide reference for novel smart materials and printing strategies as well as applications of intelligent devices.

Monolithic Three-Dimensional Functionally Graded Hydrogels for Bioinspired Soft Robots Fabrication

Bioinspired soft robotics aims at reproducing the complex hierarchy and architecture of biological tissues within artificial systems to achieve the typical motility and adaptability of living organisms. The development of suitable fabrication approaches to produce monolithic bodies provided with embedded variable morphological and mechanical properties, typically encountered in nature, is still a technological challenge. Here we report on a novel manufacturing approach to produce three-dimensional functionally graded hydrogels (3D-FGHs) provided with a controlled porosity gradient conferring them variable stiffness. 3D-FGHs are fabricated by means of a custom-designed liquid foam templating (LFT) technique, which relies on the inclusion of air bubbles generated by a blowing agent into the monomer-based template solution during ultraviolet-induced photopolymerization. The 3D-FGHs' apparent Young's modulus ranges from 0.37 MPa (bulky hydrogel region) to 0.09 MPa (highest porosity region). A fish-shaped soft swimmer is fabricated to demonstrate the feasibility of the LFT technique to produce bioinspired robots. Mobility tests show a significant improvement in terms of swimming speed when the robot is provided with a graded body. The proposed manufacturing approach constitutes an enabling solution for the development of macroscopic functionally graded hydrogel-based structures usable in biomimetic underwater soft robotics applications.

Recent progress in engineering functional biohybrid robots actuated by living cells

Living cells are highly scalable biological actuators found in nature, and they are efficient technological solutions to actuate robotic systems. Recent advancements in biofabrication and tissue engineering have bridged the gap to interface muscle cells with artificial technology. In this review, we summarize the recent progress in engineering the attributes of individual components for the development of fully functional biohybrid robots. First, we address the fabrication of biological actuators for biohybrid robots with muscle cells and tissues, including cardiomyocytes, skeletal muscles, insect tissues, and neuromuscular tissues, in well-organized pattern of 2D sheets and 3D constructs. Next, we discuss the performance of biohybrid robots for various biomimetic tasks such as swimming, walking, gripping, and pumping. Finally, the challenges and future directions in the development of biohybrid robots are described from different viewpoints of living material engineering, multiscale modeling, 3D printing for manufacturing, and multifunctional robotic system development.

Biohybrid Nanosystems for Cancer Treatment: Merging the Best of Two Worlds

During the last 20+ years, research into the biomedical application of nanotechnology has helped in reshaping cancer treatment. The clinical use of several passively targeted nanosystems resulted in improved quality of care for patients. However, the therapeutic efficacy of these systems is not superior to the original drugs. Moreover, despite extensive investigations into actively targeted nanocarriers, numerous barriers still remain before their successful clinical translation, including sufficient bloodstream circulation time and efficient tumor targeting. The combination of synthetic nanomaterials with biological elements (e.g., cells, cell membranes, and macromolecules) is presently the cutting-edge research in cancer nanotechnology. The features provided by the biological moieties render the particles with prolonged bloodstream circulation time and homotopic targeting to the tumor site. Moreover, cancer cell membranes serve as sources of neoantigens, useful in the formulation of nanovaccines. In this chapter, we will discuss the advantages of biohybrid nanosystems in cancer chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and combined therapy, as well as highlight their preparation methods and clinical translatability.

Functional rewiring across spinal injuries via biomimetic nanofiber scaffolds

The regrowth of severed axons is fundamental to reestablish motor control after spinal-cord injury (SCI). Ongoing efforts to promote axonal regeneration after SCI have involved multiple strategies that have been only partially successful. Our study introduces an artificial carbon-nanotube based scaffold that, once implanted in SCI rats, improves motor function recovery. Confocal microscopy analysis plus fiber tracking by magnetic resonance imaging and neurotracer labeling of long-distance corticospinal axons suggest that recovery might be partly attributable to successful crossing of the lesion site by regenerating fibers. Since manipulating SCI microenvironment properties, such as mechanical and electrical ones, may promote biological responses, we propose this artificial scaffold as a prototype to exploit the physics governing spinal regenerative plasticity.

Photo-cross-linkable, insulating silk fibroin for bioelectronics with enhanced cell affinity

Bioelectronic scaffolds that support devices while promoting tissue integration could enable tissue hybrids with augmented electronic capabilities. Here, we demonstrate a photo-cross-linkable silk fibroin (PSF) derivative and investigate its structural, electrical, and chemical properties. Lithographically defined PSF films offered tunable thickness and <1-µm spatial resolution and could be released from a relief layer yielding freestanding scaffolds with centimeter-scale uniformity. These constructs were electrically insulating; multielectrode arrays with PSF-passivated interconnects provided stable electrophysiological readouts from HL-1 cardiac model cells, brain slices, and hearts. Compared to SU8, a ubiquitous biomaterial, PSF exhibited superior affinity toward neurons which we attribute to its favorable surface charge and enhanced attachment of poly-d-lysine adhesion factors. This finding is of significant importance in bioelectronics, where tight junctions between devices and cell membranes are necessary for electronic communication. Collectively, our findings are generalizable to a variety of geometries, devices, and tissues, establishing PSF as a promising bioelectronic platform.

Vascularized Polymers Spatially Control Bacterial Cells on Surfaces

Nature uses vascular systems to permit large-area control over the functionality of surfaces that lie above them. In this work, the application of this concept to the control of a hybrid living-nonliving system is demonstrated. Defined arrangements of vascular channels are created in agar using a fugitive ink printing method. The antibiotic gentamicin is then introduced into the vascular network where it diffuses to the surface and interacts with a model system of Escherichia coli cells. The cells either live or die depending on their distance from the underlying channels, permitting spatial control over the biological system. Using single-channel systems to define critical parameters, a theoretical model is developed to define the final surface pattern based solely on the arrangement of the underlying vascular channels. The model is then successfully used to create more complex arrangements of cells at the surface. Finally, by introducing different types of active compounds into separate vascular channels, a mixture of bacterial species is separated and localized at defined points. This work demonstrates the ability of bioinspired embedded vascular systems to predictably control a biological system at a surface, laying the groundwork for future spatially and temporally controlled biointerfaces in both industry and medicine.

Biocompatible chitosan-based composites with properties suitable for hyperthermia therapy

Sustainably made, flexible and biocompatible composites, having environmentally friendly compositions and multifunctional capabilities, are promising materials for several emerging biomedical applications.

From stars to stripes: RNA-directed shaping of plant viral protein templates-structural synthetic virology for smart biohybrid nanostructures

The self-assembly of viral building blocks bears exciting prospects for fabricating new types of bionanoparticles with multivalent protein shells. These enable a spatially controlled immobilization of functionalities at highest surface densities-an increasing demand worldwide for applications from vaccination to tissue engineering, biocatalysis, and sensing. Certain plant viruses hold particular promise because they are sustainably available, biodegradable, nonpathogenic for mammals, and amenable to in vitro self-organization of virus-like particles. This offers great opportunities for their redesign into novel "green" carrier systems by spatial and structural synthetic biology approaches, as worked out here for the robust nanotubular tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) as prime example. Natural TMV of 300 x 18 nm is built from more than 2,100 identical coat proteins (CPs) helically arranged around a 6,395 nucleotides ssRNA. In vitro, TMV-like particles (TLPs) may self-assemble also from modified CPs and RNAs if the latter contain an Origin of Assembly structure, which initiates a bidirectional encapsidation. By way of tailored RNA, the process can be reprogrammed to yield uncommon shapes such as branched nanoobjects. The nonsymmetric mechanism also proceeds on 3'-terminally immobilized RNA and can integrate distinct CP types in blends or serially. Other emerging plant virus-deduced systems include the usually isometric cowpea chlorotic mottle virus (CCMV) with further strikingly altered structures up to "cherrybombs" with protruding nucleic acids. Cartoon strips and pictorial descriptions of major RNA-based strategies induct the reader into a rare field of nanoconstruction that can give rise to utile soft-matter architectures for complex tasks. This article is categorized under: Biology-Inspired Nanomaterials > Protein and Virus-Based Structures Nanotechnology Approaches to Biology > Nanoscale Systems in Biology Biology-Inspired Nanomaterials > Nucleic Acid-Based Structures.

Living Materials Herald a New Era in Soft Robotics

Living beings have an unsurpassed range of ways to manipulate objects and interact with them. They can make autonomous decisions and can heal themselves. So far, a conventional robot cannot mimic this complexity even remotely. Classical robots are often used to help with lifting and gripping and thus to alleviate the effects of menial tasks. Sensors can render robots responsive, and artificial intelligence aims at enabling autonomous responses. Inanimate soft robots are a step in this direction, but it will only be in combination with living systems that full complexity will be achievable. The field of biohybrid soft robotics provides entirely new concepts to address current challenges, for example the ability to self-heal, enable a soft touch, or to show situational versatility. Therefore, "living materials" are at the heart of this review. Similarly to biological taxonomy, there is a recent effort for taxonomy of biohybrid soft robotics. Here, an expansion is proposed to take into account not only function and origin of biohybrid soft robotic components, but also the materials. This materials taxonomy key demonstrates visually that materials science will drive the development of the field of soft biohybrid robotics.

Fabrication of Electrochemical-Based Bioelectronic Device and Biosensor Composed of Biomaterial-Nanomaterial Hybrid

The field of bioelectronics has paved the way for the development of biochips, biomedical devices, biosensors and biocomputation devices. Various biosensors and biomedical devices have been developed to commercialize laboratory products and transform them into industry products in the clinical, pharmaceutical, environmental fields. Recently, the electrochemical bioelectronic devices that mimicked the functionality of living organisms in nature were applied to the use of bioelectronics device and biosensors. In particular, the electrochemical-based bioelectronic devices and biosensors composed of biomolecule-nanoparticle hybrids have been proposed to generate new functionality as alternatives to silicon-based electronic computation devices, such as information storage, process, computations and detection. In this chapter, we described the recent progress of bioelectronic devices and biosensors based on biomaterial-nanomaterial hybrid.