Join the Wyss Institute at Harvard University, Tufts University, and the University of Vermont for a live panel discussion with the team of scientists that built the first living robots (“Xenobots,” assembled from frog cells) in 2020. In new research published this week in PNAS, the team has discovered that not only can these computer-designed organisms move on their own, they can swim around their tiny dish, gather together single frog cells, and assemble “baby” Xenobots that, a few days later, become new Xenobots that look and move just like themselves.
What does this advance mean for our understanding of life and reproduction? How did the scientists accomplish this feat without modifying the genes of these organisms? Can we even call them organisms, or are they robots — or something else entirely? The authors will discuss these questions and many more.
This webinar will also be livestreamed on our YouTube channel.