A groundbreaking adaptive 3D printing system has been created by researchers at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, allowing for the identification and safe relocation of randomly distributed organisms to designated spots for assembly.
This innovative autonomous technology is set to streamline processes in bioimaging, cybernetics, cryopreservation, and the integration of living organisms, ultimately saving researchers valuable time and resources.
The findings have been published in Advanced Science, which is a scientifically peer-reviewed journal, and the team is in the process of securing a patent for this technology.
This advanced system is capable of tracking, gathering, and accurately positioning bugs and other living organisms, whether those are stationary, suspended in droplets, or on the move. Utilizing a real-time guided pick-and-place method, the system adjusts to guarantee precise placement of the organisms.
According to Guebum Han, a former postdoctoral researcher in mechanical engineering at the University of Minnesota and the lead author of the paper, “The printer essentially mimics human actions: the printer serves as hands, the machine vision system acts as eyes, and the computer functions as the brain. It can adapt in real-time to both moving and still organisms, arranging them in specified patterns.”
This task has traditionally been performed manually, requiring comprehensive training, which can lead to inconsistencies in applications involving organisms. The new system reduces the time commitment for researchers and promotes more reliable results.
The technology has the potential to enhance the number of organisms processed for cryopreservation, separate live organisms from dead ones, position organisms on curved surfaces, and assimilate them with materials and devices in custom shapes. It may also pave the way for assembling complex organism structures, such as hierarchical organizations similar to those found in ant and bee colonies. Moreover, this research could advance autonomous biomanufacturing by enabling the assessment and assembly of organisms.
For instance, the system has been employed to refine cryopreservation techniques for zebrafish embryos, which previously required manual handling. With this innovative approach, researchers demonstrated that the process could be accomplished 12 times faster than the conventional method. There’s also an example of its adaptive strategy successfully tracking, picking up, and placing randomly moving beetles, integrating them with functional devices in the process.
Looking ahead, the research team aspires to further develop this technology and merge it with robotics to create a portable version suitable for field research, enabling the collection of organisms or samples from otherwise hard-to-access locations.
The team, alongside Han, comprises graduate research assistants Kieran Smith and Daniel Wai Hou Ng, Assistant Professor JiYong Lee, Professor John Bischof, Professor Michael McAlpine, and previous postdoctoral researchers Kanav Khosla and Xia Ouyang. Their work was conducted in collaboration with the Engineering Research Center (ERC) focused on Advanced Technologies for the Preservation of Biological Systems (ATP-Bio).
This research received funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and Regenerative Medicine Minnesota.
