Microbots-origami caught a yeast cell

Scientists from the University of North Carolinapublished a video in which miniature robots are busy capturing yeast cells. In the video you can see how the five cubes float quietly, but then begin to stick to each other, holding together for one facet. Then the new structure, like Pak-Manu, begins to move, as if opening and closing the mouth, and then grabs the “gaping” cell.

Researchers call these polymer cubes“Origami microbes” and describe them as modular structures with edges coated with a metallic coating that reacts to magnets located around the microscope. Thanks to this, the microbots can be combined with each other, reconfiguring into various shapes as they go. Now the creators use microbots for researching materials at the micro level.

- Take something big and then execute with itthe subject is some kind of mechanical manipulation, quite easy, but to take and flatten, for example, one vesicle at a time - this is already more difficult, - explains one of the co-authors of the development.

The creators of microbots are going to continue research and predict the future of biomedical devices, capable of simplifying the work of doctors and scientists at the cellular level, to their offspring.