Published experiment — human-derived cells in vitro
Self-organization and local neural-gap closure
Motile Living Biobots Self-Construct from Adult Human Somatic Progenitor Seed Cells
Evidence record
Source reviewed 2026-10-22 · Publication date retained
- Original publication
- 2023-11-30 · First online publication; journal issue is 2024. Preserve the original online date.
- DOI
- 10.1002/advs.202303575
- Authors
- Gizem Gumuskaya, Pranjal Srivastava, Ben G. Cooper, Hannah Lesser, Ben Semegran, Simon Garnier, Michael Levin
- Evidence class
- Published experiment — human-derived cells in vitro
- Source access
- Wiley full text and figure captions inspected; supplement not independently inspected. Donor count and donor-to-experiment mapping remain unverified.
- Model
- Adult human bronchial epithelial cell-derived motile spheroids; scratch assays in human neural monolayers.
- Donors / population
- Count: UNKNOWN . Unknown from inspected material; do not substitute bot counts or experiment counts.
- Experimental units
- Individual spheroids for morphology/motility; 10 experimental bridge replicates in Figure 6. Five maintained bridging connectivity, and closure was reported beneath all five.
- Controls
- Native uninjured neural tissue, adjacent/distal scratch regions, and passive agarose loading comparator.
- Endpoints
- Morphology, ciliary movement, trajectories and neuronal pixel coverage at scratch bridges.
- Finding in scope
- Adult somatic cells self-organized into motile constructs without direct genetic editing; stable bridges were associated with localized gap closure.
- Limitations
- In-vitro gap coverage does not establish restoration of a functioning nervous system, clinical repair, or a bioelectric mechanism. Selection of stable bridges matters; donor replication is unresolved.
- Next test
- Audit donor/batch mapping and blinded gap scoring; distinguish migration, proliferation and survival; add electrophysiological and durable connectivity endpoints before functional neural claims.
- Human clinical evidence
- None established by this study.
Translate evidence into a question.
This is external research. It is not a Karam result, clinical service or claim of an available intervention.