Stress Ball Morphogenesis: Humble Lizards Offer Surprising Approach to Engineering Artificial Lungs

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Stress Ball Morphogenesis: Humble Lizards Offer Surprising Approach to Engineering Artificial Lungs:

A new study from Princeton University shows how the brown anole lizard solves one of nature's most complex problems - breathing - with ultimate simplicity. Whereas human lungs develop over months and years into baroque tree-like structures, the anole lung develops in just a few days into crude lobes covered with bulbous protuberances. These gourd-like structures, while far less refined, allow the lizard to exchange oxygen for waste gases just as human lungs do. And because they grow quickly by leveraging simple mechanical processes, anole lungs provide new inspiration for engineers designing advanced biotechnologies.

"Our group is really interested in understanding lung development for engineering purposes," said Celeste Nelson, the Wilke Family Professor in Bioengineering and the study's principal investigator. "If we understand how lungs build themselves, then perhaps we can take advantage of the mechanisms mother nature uses to regenerate or engineer tissues."

While avian and mammalian lungs develop great complexity through endless branching and complicated biochemical signaling, the brown anole lung forms its relatively modest complexity through a mechanical process the authors likened to a mesh stress ball - the common toy found in desk drawers and DIY videos. The study, published on December 22, 2021, in the journal Science Advances, is the first ever to look at the development of a reptile lung, according to the researchers.

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