Biohacking our way to health | Michael Levin

This biologist built a living robot from frog cells — and it could hold the key to the future of regenerative medicine.

Developmental biologist Michael Levin proposes an alternative approach to regenerative medicine: one that involves communicating with cells to trigger specific associations and induce changes in tissues. He envisions a future where biomedicine relies less on chemistry, and looks more like behavioral science.

By leveraging the native competencies of cells, Levin thinks researchers can achieve complex outcomes without micromanagement. He demonstrates this through the regeneration of frog legs by simply prompting cells towards the regenerative state.

Levin introduces “xenobots,” bio-robots formed by self-assembling frog skin cells. These xenobots are key to the regenerative medicine of the future, with the potential to create solutions for birth defects, reprogramming tumors — even creating new organs. Levin emphasizes the moral imperative to pursue this research to address pressing medical needs.

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[TasZ]

Professor Levin, thank you for explaining these groundbreaking concepts via YouTube. I feel honored to have been enlighted so much.
The philosophy of the last sentence struck with me on a whole different level: "...the calculus is not about what could go wrong, but what is already wrong if we do nothing anout it today." 7:37

[gathuckle]

I came across Dr. Levin just a few months ago. It's one of the best things that ever happened to me. His work is fantastic.

[Sulbee]

Mike was one of the first scientists I talked to entering biological sciences. Trust me when I say, he is one of the most profound thinkers you can have as a teacher!

[susank]

I would relish taking classes on cellular biology from Dr. Levin, aka future Nobel Prize recipient. This is truly ground breaking and implies something close to cellular intelligence, if I'm understanding this properly.

[JapseyeSpecs]

Cellular intelligence is very well documented in fungi but within the cells of the body, that is incredible.

[armartin]

This sounds like an excellent stepping stone on the path to regenerative medicine.

[arabstaff]

I’m a clinician from China and I support your thinking

[michaelzumpano]

Your last statement was brilliant: “not what can go wrong, but what is already wrong if we do nothing”!

[radwanabu-issa]

I think what we can learn from such experiments and outcomes is that the biological systems are too complex to micromanage them but we can make altercation into them and see what strange things they do in response to our intervention and employ such new behaviour in things that may benefit us in Medicine, Agriculture, Technology and other possible applications!

[zvorenergy]

Embrace the insight of intelligence of life. Life is coded, designed, and intelligent, through and through, with connections and relations to the universe we are barely becoming aware of.

[ubaidmalik]

This is truly amazing science. To know cellular communication is possible and when it will become accessible for everyday people with anytype of health needs it will indeed change the world for the better. Yet another revolution in the making and giving hope to a brighter future for humanity.

[andrewwalker]

Super informative, this is on the brink of something special. 💯

[evenodds]

Can we get this guy more resources if he can use them? I need him to fix my back ASAP, thank you

[dominantmale]

This is an expert and his argument for scientific research in this field is impressive and profoundly humanitarian. Maybe Professor Levin could teach ethics to some other so called experts out there.

[biohackshq]

Great topic. Through regenerative medicine, we become the architects of our well-being.

[GajanaNigade]

Please invite Dr. levin often on The Well and BigThink.
I just feel like sitting next to him and keep asking random questions and derive my own insights from his answers.

[mcomuonobunde-omuono]

As I write, this channel has 111k subscribers and it has garnered 111k views. Quite a fantastic occurrence.

[simleek]

If you're going to make a call to action at the end about using the tech more, maybe go into detail about the frog healing its leg rather than the bio-robots? Maybe start with the bio robots and then go into detail about healing? Biotech _is_ incredibly promising for long term health, but I feel like none of the specific things shown really demonstrate that.

[venkataponnaganti]

Trail blazing. Congratulations and good wishes for further work on these lines.

[ericjohnson]

Personally, I'm hoping stem cell research, or something like this, to solve the transplant rejection problem. I want my body to treat my new heart as a normal part of my body, without the use of immunosuppressants.