Title of the talk: Transport and delivery by living materials
One of the major challenges in robotics is controlling transport and micromanipulation by active and adaptive materials. Existing delivery technologies often suffer from limited navigation control, low speeds, and proneness to environmental disturbances. Biology often solves these problems by collectively organizing actuation at the microscale. For example, pathogens are removed from our lungs by an active carpet of cilia. Inside these cilia, in turn, microtubules form highways for molecular motors. In this talk, I will present developments in the microfabrication of “artificial cilia” and “artificial microtubules”. We designed amphibious cilia that can transport both liquids and dry objects [1]. These carpets can sort particles by size and by shape using a crowd-surfing effect. We also designed magnetic microtubules, structured microfibers that rapidly guide particles through flow networks such as the cardiovascular system [2]. These works offer unique strategies for robust microscale delivery, but equally shed light on non-equilibrium effects in biological transport processes [3].
[1] Demirörs AF et al., “Amphibious transport of fluids and solids by soft magnetic carpets”, Adv. Sci. 202102510 (2021)
[2] Gu H et al., “Artificial microtubules for rapid and collective transport of magnetic microcargoes”, Nat. Mach. Intell. 4: 678–684 (2022)
[3] Guzman-Lastra F et al., “Active carpets drive non-equilibrium diffusion and enhanced molecular fluxes,” Nat. Commun. 12: 1906 (2021)
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