Consider the sheepdog.

Think of biobots like sheepdogs. Humans don’t control every step a sheepdog takes: they give directions, and the dog autonomously navigates a messy real-world environment to do useful work. Fauna is building biological systems that may eventually work in a similar way at microscopic scales: directed by people, but capable of autonomous behavior in environments that are too dynamic, delicate, or complex for many existing tools.

What is a biobot?

Biobots (also called “xenobots”) are small, living, programmable systems designed to do useful work. Fauna’s work builds on xenobot research from Tufts University and the University of Vermont: computationally designed biological assemblies that can move, self-power, sense aspects of their environment, and exhibit collective behavior. (Xenobots are derived from cells from the Xenopus laevis frog, though any cells could be used, in principle.)

Moreover, the objects that biobots interact with in turn have an effect on their environment, too; to return to the sheepdog analogy, the sheepdogs affect sheep, which in turn affect their environment. So biobots are designed not just with these direct effects in mind, but with secondary impacts, too.

History

In 2020, Fauna Systems co-founders Michael Levin and Joshua Bongard produced a seminal paper with collaborators Sam Kriegman and Doug Blackiston showcasing the world’s first computer-designed living organism. Coverage in the New York Times called these tiny cell clusters, which could move and self-repair, “a new class of living robotics,” with the potential to profoundly change science, medicine and our understanding of life itself.