Pen and Paper Revolutionaries: Medical School Birdman Studies the Science of Movement

Some would call it a work space; others, a zoo. Charles P. Lyman Professor of Biology Andrew Biewener’s office is a museum of comparative zoology, housing a variety of emus, cockatiels and wallabies. But that doesn’t mean this au courant researcher is any less serious than his Harvard Medical School colleagues. While his peers are looking for the next medical miracle, Biewener is studying how animals move.

Using high-speed digital video with ultra slow-motion, Biewener has mapped everything from the locomotion of dogs to the flight patterns of birds. “It is all very observational,” Biewener says. “You must use some intuition but also study the mechanics behind such movement.”

Up until this point, scientists have only studied the way dogs move, for example, on a treadmill at a steady speed. “That’s not really realistic,” says Monica Daley, a fourth-year graduate student and Biewener’s advisee. The dog’s steady movement on a treadmill is completely different from its unsteady locomotion in nature—the patterns Biewener is really interested in.

Biewerner’s work has led to medical advances. By studying the way animals move, he can understand human movement, helping him create artificial muscles and tendons, or more natural prostheses.

Biewener would also like to apply his research to robotics. He envisions a robot in the pattern of a dog or human that could act as a mechanic rescuer.

To that end, Tyson L. Hedrick, a graduate student working under Biewener, has been studying the qualities of muscles. “It’s fun and a little confusing,” Hedrick says. “Being on the cutting edge means you don’t really know where you’re going. [You wonder,] ‘Are we in a blind alley?’”

There is little precedent for Biewener’s research. “We appreciate the aesthetic movement of a bird that’s flying, it’s athletic and beautiful,” Biewener says. But before him, few had thought about the biology, mechanics and engineering behind the fluid movement and none had done the extensive research Biewener has crossing these fields’ boundaries. “It is a challenge of understanding biological aspects of life as it exists,” says Biewener.