BioSynthetic Muscle Motors and Calcium by Monty K Reed. Grab a freshly fertilized quail egg, add a little shark muscle to differentiate the cell type you want and eight weeks later you will have live twitching muscles. If you add a lattice structure made from NiTiNol you can get the muscles to live a bit longer in the dish. By growing the muscle tissue inside of surgical tubing you can pump the life giving bio-fluids over the growing cells. The fluid provides nutrients to the cells and the valuable oxygen. In the fluid, dissolved calcium allows the muscles to contract and expand repeatedly. The fluid is oxygenated using a standard air pump from a fish aquarium. A filter removes the waste products from the fluids after leaving the muscle tissue.
By growing the muscles inside of a surgical tubing it is possible to get some work out of the muscle and keep it alive. So far the record for extended life is over 72 hours once we put the muscles to work. The future goal is to be able to replenish and repair the cells of muscle tissue while it is working.
For now we have to grow the muscle motors for 8 weeks, put them into service and replace them every three days.
The bio synthetic muscles motors are more powerful than man made motors and eventually will replace them in many applications.
We are growing them specifically to replace the pneumatic and hydroponic actuators for the LIFESUIT robotic exoskeleton. One of the future research items is the grow bone tissue with the muscle so it can tap them as a source for the calcium used during the myosin and actin contraction cycles as the muscles do inside of a living organism. For this project to work we will need another $100k to set up the biosynthetic lab. I am very surprised we have not seen more muscle motor projects.
As we develop this technology we will continue to publish the results. It may be that we will make a presentation for Dorkbot as an art display. Some millionaire may see what we are trying to do and decide to give the gift of walking.
