Team:MIT mammalian Circuit

The Cellular Touchpad

Our project began with idea of a biological touchscreen. We envisioned a cellular 'iPad', a plate of cells that could sense applied pressure and differentiate in response. There are a ton of applications for this technology; at the most basic level, one could imagine drawing a pattern onto a cellular monolayer and watch bone form around the outline. The system could also be used to study morphogenesis, to explore the role of chemical and mechanical signaling in differentiation by trying to build analogous synthetic counterparts. In fact, the cellular differentiation toolkit developed in this project could be used someday to construct a morphogenetic system from scratch. We've developed a basic standard for linking mechanical sensing to cellular differentiation; we built the groundwork for a complex tissue differentiation system, and hope to see it devevlop to support even more intricate systems.