We used a large amount of IRL resources and knowledge in our fields to make this as close to realistic as possible. There's enough wiggle room for CCP to make a story, but enough solid factual science in it to not seem like derp fantasy. We essentially said, if we had no limitations IRL and we needed to build a Drifter like being for a task, how would we do it?
I work closely with the National Institutes of Health in the USA along with a lot of drug and medical device companies. I have access to plenty of research. Miz and Kalo are both pre-Med. Kyber is just vastly intelligent in all things mechanical, process, and logic. This combined allowed us to make a realistic and strong analysis.