Flexible Surgical Sealant Inspired by Slug Slime

Innovation: Academia

Harvard

2017

Image: Lucas Myers / Unsplash / CC BY SA - Creative Commons Attribution + ShareAlike

Attach Temporarily

Living systems must sometimes, temporarily, stay in one place, climb or otherwise move around, or hold things together. This entails attaching temporarily with the ability to release, which minimizes energy and material use. Some living systems repeatedly attach, detach, and reattach for an extended time, such as over their lifetimes. Despite being temporary, these attachments must withstand physical and other forces until they have achieved their purpose. Therefore, living systems have adapted attachment mechanisms optimized for the amount of time or number of times they must be used. An example is the gecko, which climbs walls by attaching its toes for less than a second. Other examples include insects that attach their eggs to a leaf until they hatch, and insects whose wings temporarily attach during flight but separate after landing.

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Surgical sealant from Harvard is a double-layered hydrogel that effectively binds biological tissue without causing lasting damage.

Benefits

Biocompatible
Waterproof

Applications

Medical treatment
Medical implants

UN Sustainable Development Goals Addressed

Goal 3: Good Health & Wellbeing

The Challenge

After surgeries and other medical procedures, broken skin is patched back together to assist in healing. Typically, the skin is sewn with stitches or stapled in place. Both of these methods can damage skin, leading to scarring and infection.

Innovation Details

The surgical sealant is a double-layered hydrogel. The first layer is an adhesive surface with positively-charged polymers protruding from its surface. The adhesive bonds to the substrate through electrostatic interactions, covalent bonds, and physical interpenetration. The second layer is a stretchable, strong hydrogel, alginate-polyacrylamide. The combination of these two layers results in an impermeable, long-lasting adhesive that is effective in many surgical applications.

Biomimicry Story

The dusky arion, a type of slug, uses mucus to protect itself against predators. When threatened, it secretes a special mucus containing proteins that bond with a surface, gluing the slug into place. Due to the strong adhesion, predators then have trouble prying the slug off the surface.

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Biological Strategy

Mucus Aids Movement

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The mucus produced by terrestrial slugs aids movement due to its viscoelastic nature.

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Viscoelastic Mucus Enables Locomotion

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References

Journal article

Tough adhesives for diverse wet surfaces

Science

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