Engineers develop new biosensing robotic arm that uses engineered bacteria to perform ‘taste’ test

The engineered bacteria resides within a porous membrane that enables chemicals to enter, but keeps the cells intact inside. When the chemical IPTG permeates the membrane, the bacteria cells produce a fluorescence protein and electronic circuits inside the module that houses the entire setup detects the light. The robot then interprets the electric signals that are sent to its control unit to decide whether to pick something up or to release it. As seen in the video below, the gripper robot spends hours submerged in the water bath to figure out whether the water contains the chemical or not before placing the ball in it. 

“By combining our work in flexible electronics and robotic skin with synthetic biology, we are closer to future breakthroughs like soft biohybrid robots that can adapt their abilities to sense, feel and move in response to changes in their environmental conditions,” says Carmel Majidi, a co-author and Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at CMU. The research paper describing the new development was published in the Science Robotics Journal. Currently, the robot is capable of ‘tasting’ only one chemical and it is said to be difficult to come up with systems that can detect varying concentrations.