The convergence of systems biology, mechanobiology, and artificial intelligence has driven increasing interest in understanding how physical mechanisms govern collective cellular behaviors during physiological processes, such as embryonic development. However, current research tools have two limitations: (1) computational models often lack accuracy in simulating intrinsic physical interactions of cell collectives, while (2) in vitro experimental models suffer from limited quantitative observation and parameter manipulation capabilities, leading to laborious and time-consuming experimental processes. To address these challenges, we developed the MorphoSystem, an interdisciplinary research platform for biological investigations. This platform integrates robot swarms, cell collectives, and computational simulations to form a multimodal investigation framework to study collective cell behaviors. Programmable robots act as cellular agents, the magnetic boundaries of which are used to simulate cellular adhesions. The MorphoSystem includes computational models for cell collectives and robot swarms. We established a dynamic model for the robot swarm, enabling precise control over the adhesion parameter. The results from biological and robotic experiments and simulations together demonstrated similar trends. This platform introduces an innovative experimental framework that bridges biological plausibility with engineering controllability. It holds significant potential for cross-disciplinary investigation, offering a quantitatively tractable approach to explore physical principles in developmental biology and informing the design of robot swarm systems.
Pan et al. (Wed,) studied this question.