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Flexing Fingers for Micro-Robotics: Berkeley Lab Scientists Create a Powerful, Microscale Actuator

By Guest PostDecember 18, 2012Scienceartificial muscles, beckoning finger, berkeley lab, chromium metal layer, chun cheng, electron, electronic behaviors, flex, human muscle cells, junqiao wu, kai liu, kevin wang, metal, microactuator, microfluidics, micron, microscale actuator, natural application, oxide material, phase transitions, phenomena, phillip m. duxbury, piezoelectric device, piezoelectric technology, ramamoorthy ramesh, subhendra d mahanti, Technology, temperature variation, university of california, vanadium dioxide, zhenting cheng

Berkeley, Calif., Dec. 2012 — Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California, Berkeley, have developed an elegant and powerful new microscale actuator that can flex like a tiny beckoning finger. Based on an oxide material that expands and contracts dramatically in response to a small temperature variation, the actuators are smaller than the width of a human hair and are promising for microfluidics, drug delivery, and artificial muscles.

“We believe our microactuator is more efficient and powerful than any current microscale actuation technology, including human muscle cells,” says Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley scientist Junqiao Wu. “What’s more, it uses this very interesting material—vanadium dioxide—and tells us more about the fundamental materials science of phase transitions.” (more…)

Body Rebuilding: Scientists Regenerate Muscle in Mice

By Guest PostDecember 10, 2011Sciencebiopolymer microthreads, blood clot, cellthera, clinical therapy, cloning, fibrin microthreads, george pins, human muscle cells, implanted cells, leg muscle, mammalian skeletal muscles, mouse, muscle repair, muscle trauma, raymond page, stem cell, threads, tissue restoration, worcester polytechnic institute, wound, wpi

*New Study Uses Reprogrammed Human Cells and Bioengineered Microthreads*

A team of scientists from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and CellThera, a private company located in WPI’s Life Sciences and Bioengineering Center, have regenerated functional muscle tissue in mice, opening the door for a new clinical therapy to treat people who suffer major muscle trauma.

The team used a novel protocol to coax mature human muscle cells into a stem cell-like state and grew those reprogrammed cells on biopolymer microthreads. The threads were placed in a wound created by surgically removing a large section of leg muscle from a mouse. Over time, the threads and cells restored near-normal function to the muscle, as reported in the paper “Restoration of Skeletal Muscle Defects with Adult Human Cells Delivered on Fibrin Microthreads”, published in the current issue of the journal Tissue Engineering. Surprisingly, the microthreads, which were used simply as a scaffold to support the reprogrammed human cells, actually seemed to accelerate the regeneration process by recruiting progenitor mouse muscle cells, suggesting that they alone could become a therapeutic tool for treating major muscle trauma. (more…)

Tag Archives: human muscle cells

Flexing Fingers for Micro-Robotics: Berkeley Lab Scientists Create a Powerful, Microscale Actuator

Body Rebuilding: Scientists Regenerate Muscle in Mice