Ritu Raman Pioneers a New Era in Bioengineering

Ritu Raman Pioneers a New Era in Bioengineering

Ritu Raman, an assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT, has been rapidly transforming the future of bioengineering through her invention of adaptive biological materials. Her recent accomplishments include being named the 2024 Office of Naval Research YIP Award Winner while being an accepted member of the Eugene Bell Career Development Chair of Tissue Engineering holder alongside being the Terasaki Institute Young Innovator.

These achievements extend her previous work on light-sensitive muscles cells and introduce the concept of using bioengineered muscle cells that can contract through light stimulation thus creating self-healing or ‘biological’ robots that could rebuild themselves if damaged, and respond to changes in environment.

Earlier, in her lab, Raman grows muscle cells with the help of polymer scaffolds formed with the help of 3D-printer. These cells, which were derived from mice, can contract under the influence of a pulsating blue light. This she jokingly describes it as the cells’ ‘gym’ where from she can learn how different type of muscle fibers emerge depending on the form of exercise they endure. By knowing this she dreams of a time when the plan in the biohybrid robots would have the strength it needs depending on the environment and it would also be able to heal itself if it gets damaged.

Raman has always been interested in engineering since her undergraduate studies at Cornell University where she developed a special interest in biomechanics. Growing up, her parents were engineers hence she fuses mechanical engineering and biology to address challenges. Biohybrid robots will form part of Kirschner’s vision towards efficient machines that can move and adapt to dynamic environments, be self- healing and even evolve in the process towards becoming better machines as well as enhance healthcare delivery.

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