Description:

Abstract

In this talk, I will describe the genesis of Xenobots: living robots composed entirely of frog (Xenopus) cells. I will describe the computational and biological technologies used to create them; where they are leapfrogging beyond conventional robots; and how insights can bounce back and forth among biology, robotics, and computer science. I will conclude with ideas about potential downstream applications of these emerging technologies as they mature in the years to come.

Biography

Sam Kriegman is a computer scientist with a joint postdoctoral appointment at the Wyss Institute at Harvard and the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts. His research draws inspiration from the origin and subsequent evolution of life, and applies the underlying mechanisms of self-organization and natural selection to the creation of novel autonomous machines. These machines can in some cases perform useful work, or they may be used as scientific tools to understand how animals evolve, grow, move, sense, and think.