This Robot Smokes Cigarettes So Rats Don't Have To

(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)