Michael Levin

Michael Levin is a Tufts University biologist who studies bioelectricity and the intelligence of cells, and who helped build living machines designed by computer algorithms. Born in Moscow in 1969, he came to Tufts interested in artificial intelligence and unconventional computation, took dual degrees in computer science and biology, and earned a genetics PhD at Harvard Medical School in 1996. In 2016, he was named to lead the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts, which studies how bioelectrical signals let cells build and repair anatomical shapes. With Josh Bongard's team at the University of Vermont, he co-led the 2020 xenobots, frog-cell organisms whose designs came from an evolutionary algorithm, and his lab went on to make human-cell Anthrobots in 2023 and neurobots in 2026. He is a Distinguished Professor holding the Vannevar Bush Chair, and his lab works on ways to communicate with diverse intelligences, from cells to robots and software-based AIs.

Now at: Tufts University
Born: 1969
Badges: Boomerang

Years link to their sources.

Timeline

1969–1986

From Moscow to Massachusetts

He is born in Moscow in 1969, and his family moves to Lynn, Massachusetts, in 1978 through a visa program for Soviet Jews. In 1986, at 17, he reads Robert O. Becker's The Body Electric, which inspires his later research into bioelectricity.
1992–2000

Computer science, biology and genetics

Drawn to artificial intelligence and unconventional computation, he earns dual BS degrees in computer science and biology at Tufts University in 1992. He completes a genetics PhD at Harvard Medical School in 1996 in Clifford Tabin's lab, then trains as a postdoctoral fellow with Mark Mercola in Harvard Medical School's cell biology department from 1996 to 2000.
2000–2012

Labs at Forsyth and Tufts

He runs his own laboratory at Harvard's Forsyth Institute from 2000 to 2007 and at Tufts University from 2008, studying information processing in regeneration, embryogenesis and cancer suppression. In 2004, Nature names his 1995 Cell work on the molecular basis of left-right asymmetry a milestone in developmental biology. He takes the Vannevar Bush endowed chair in 2011 and receives the IFESS Scientist of Vision Award in 2012.
March 2016

The Allen Discovery Center at Tufts

In March 2016, Tufts receives a $10 million grant from the Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group, and he is named to lead the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University for Reading and Writing the Morphogenetic Code. The center studies how bioelectrical signaling helps cells communicate to create and repair complex anatomical shapes. He also directs the Tufts Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology.
January 2020

Computer-designed xenobots

In January 2020, he and Josh Bongard of the University of Vermont co-lead the PNAS study that introduces xenobots, millimeter-wide living machines built from frog embryo cells. An evolutionary algorithm on UVM's Deep Green supercomputer generates the body designs, and his Tufts team, with microsurgeon Douglas Blackiston, assembles them from Xenopus laevis stem cells.
November 2021

Self-replicating xenobots

He co-leads a follow-up study, published in PNAS in November 2021, in which xenobots gather loose frog cells into piles that become new xenobots. An evolutionary algorithm on UVM's Deep Green supercomputer tests billions of body shapes in simulation and finds a Pac-Man-shaped parent that extends the number of generations.
November 2023

Anthrobots from human cells

In November 2023, he and PhD student Gizem Gumuskaya report in Advanced Science that adult human tracheal cells, with no genetic modification, can form moving biobots called Anthrobots. In a lab dish, the Anthrobots encourage neurons to grow across a scratched gap in a layer of cells.
As of October 2026

Distinguished Professor at Tufts

In March 2026, his team and Wyss Institute senior scientist Haleh Fotowat report the first neurobots, biobots implanted with neuronal precursor cells in which nervous systems self-organize. He is a Distinguished Professor holding the Vannevar Bush Chair in Tufts' Department of Biology and directs the Allen Discovery Center. His lab develops frameworks for detecting, understanding and communicating with diverse intelligences, including cells, synthetic living constructs, robots and software-based AIs.