This Robot Smokes Cigarettes So Rats Don't Have To
Released on 11/01/2016
(upbeat music)
[Narrator] So, here's something.
A chain-smoking robot.
Looks like we've got a regular Marlboro Man over here.
Now, to be clear, humans smoking
isn't as cool as a tobacco companies would have you believe.
But a smoking robot is totally cool
because it's helping scientists
at the Wyss Institute at Harvard
better understand COPD,
or Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.
That'd be the intense coughing
and shortness of breath
and infections common among smokers.
This thing is pretty darn brilliant.
It begins with what's known as a lung on a chip.
It ends up looking a bit like a human airway
and comes complete with human lung cells.
Because it has these cells,
it also produces mucus
and has hair-like structures called cilia
that move the mucus around.
The robot itself is pretty much
a Gatling gun of cigarettes.
An automated lighter from a car
fires up each smoke.
The researchers can even program the robot
to huff at different intervals and intensities.
And by loading up the lung chips
with either the cells from a patient with lung disease
or a non-smoker,
the scientists can see how smoke
affects each differently.
Their findings could lead to new treatments
for sufferers of COPD
and do away with the old method,
sticking rats in a box of smoke.
So, huff away, little one
and do mind the ash.
(upbeat music)
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