What the team from the Biohybrid Systems Laboratory led by Professor Shoji Takeuchi from the University of Tokyo presented in June of last year was fascinating, but also somewhat reminiscent of Dr. Frankenstein’s experiments. The researchers had attached a piece of living skin to a robot and were able to move it at the touch of a button. They had succeeded in binding living tissue to an artificial surface in such a way that it was not destroyed. They used collagen, a fibrous protein in human skin, and human skin fibroblasts, the most common cell type in human connective tissue. The result is a new composite material made from biological and non-biological components: a “biohybrid”.
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Biology meets robotics
This fusion makes materials with completely new functions possible. Takeuchi’s main goal was not to give robots human characteristics—rather, he was looking for a way to harness the advantages of biology for robotics. In a subsequent experiment, the scientist therefore used the composite material to combine cultivated muscle tissue with plastic elements to create multi-tissue actuators that stimulate or influence several tissue types simultaneously. He then built these actuators into a robotic hand to show that in the future, robots may use real muscles instead of bulky and heavy electric motors to move. This would be a revolution for robotics.
Effective material solutions
But it is not only artificial robot muscles that are made possible by the biohybrid approach. A variety of new smart materials that react to external stimuli such as light, temperature or chemical signals are conceivable.
Biohybrid materials may also be able to improve recyclability. At Saarland University, for example, a prototype game controller was created whose housing is made of bacterial cellulose instead of plastic. To do this, the researchers allowed the cellulose to grow around the electronic components such as buttons and microswitches. New biohybrid components are also being researched as part of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft’s flagship project Sustainable Bio-based and Biohybrid Materials.
Even if it will be some time before robots are exercising their biological muscles in the gym, biohybrid materials will open up a new chapter in materials science. In the future, they have the potential to create more functional, sustainable and effective material solutions in numerous applications and areas such as automation, medicine, robotics, and environmental sciences.
Evonik has recognized this potential and already has a first biohybrid in its portfolio in the form of a biosynthetic cellulose. That’s a good reason for Foresight to analyze the topic in depth as part of the GameChanger 2035 project and to identify future potential for Evonik. 
