Japanese scientists grow real skin for robots

The Japanese love robots and regularly produce and improve them. While they are more like “smart pieces of iron”:

But progress does not stand still, and now scientists are working hard to create machines that will copy people, and not resemble a “smart calculator”. And this is not fiction, but a matter of time.

Professor Shoji Takeuchi and his team from the University of Tokyo have created a robotic finger similar to a human one. He was placed in a vessel with a collagen solution and papillary fibroblast cells, and this mixture took on the contours of a finger.

After that, the scientists added epidermal cells to give the skin a natural structure. The material turned out to be durable and elastic, when the finger was bent, the skin did not tear or crack. And when they cut it and applied a collagen bandage, the wound healed.

While living skin should be treated regularly with a nutrient solution. But over time, scientists will eliminate this shortcoming. At the same time, they want to create a hand with nails, sweat glands, hair follicles, and even sensory neurons that provide a sense of touch. And it will be a 100% copy of a human hand.

As Professor Takeuchi says: “These experiments are only the first step towards the creation of biorobots with living skin. In my opinion, it is thanks to living skin that robots can look and feel like living beings.”