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A living artificial swimmer from soft flagella and cardiac cells

Taher Saif (University of Illinois at Urba), Brian Williams (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Sandeep Anand (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

Experimental Nanobiomechanics

Mon 10:45 - 12:15

Barus-Holley 163

A large family of micro organisms use flagellar dynamics to swim. Due to their small size, the fluid appears to be highly viscous, and inertial forces are negligible. In order to swim, the flagellum is subjected to an internal cyclic bending moment generated by motor proteins throughout the tail, resulting in a large amplitude wave traveling from the head to the tail end. The associated solid-fluid interaction (fluid resistance against the traveling wave) results in a propulsive force on the flagellum along the longitudinal direction, which drives the swimmer through the fluid, generating a balancing drag. There is no example of engineered self propelled swimmers at small scale yet. The few examples of small scale swimmers in the literature are powered by external magnetic fields. In this paper we provide the first evidence of a self propelled swimmer powered by synchronous beating of cardiac cells. The swimmers are derived from a hybrid of engineered soft structure and rat primary cardiac cells. The structure consists of a long tail made from PDMS. Cardiac cells are plated on the tail at desired locations. The cells attach to the tail, beat in synchrony with each other, and generate a bending moment on the tail. The bending wave travels along the tail, generating sufficient thrust to propel it. We develop a theoretical model to understand such swimming by the cardiac cells. The model predictions match well with experimental observations. In this paper, we will discuss the mechanism of synchrony between cardiac cells, and the mechanics of swimming at small scale powered by cardiac cells.