Versatile Synthetic Hydrogels Inspired by Natural Animal Mucus

Innovation: Industry

Gel Matter Co.

Modify Material Characteristics

The materials found in living systems are variable, yet often made from the same basic building blocks. For example, all insect exoskeletons consist of a material called chitin. Because material resources are limited, each material within or used by a given living system must frequently serve multiple purposes. Therefore, living systems have strategies to modify materials’ softness, flexibility, and other characteristics. To ensure survival, the benefits of these modifications must outweigh the living system’s energy and material expenditure to generate them. For example, spiders store the liquid components of spider silk in a gland, converting them into silk thread when needed. Some threads have different characteristics, such as elasticity and UV reflectance, than others.

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Protect From Loss of Liquids

Water is essential to life. Liquids, mostly water, make up 70 to 90% of all living systems, and the loss of even a small percentage can mean the difference between life and death. Living systems must maintain a proper liquid balance, which is especially difficult in dry conditions. To do so, they must control the movement of liquids across their boundaries. Living systems do this using structures or waterproof materials to prevent or slow liquid movement. For example, when humans receive a cut, they must limit blood loss. Scattered throughout the bloodstream are lens-shaped structures that serve to plug the wound.

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Protect From Microbes

In living systems, microbes play important roles, such as breaking down organic matter and maintaining personal and system health. But they also pose threats. Bacteria can be pathogens that cause diseases. Some bacteria create colonies called biofilms that can coat surfaces, reducing their effectiveness–for example, inhibiting a leaf’s ability to photosynthesize. Living systems must have strategies for protecting from microbes that cause disease or become so numerous that they create an imbalance in the system. At the same time, living systems must continue living in harmony with other microbes. Some living systems kill microbes. Others repel without killing to reduce the chances that microbes will adapt to the lethal strategy and become resistant to it. For example, some pea seedlings exude a chemical that inhibits biofilm buildup.

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Move in/on Solids

To obtain needed resources or escape predators, some living systems must move on solid substances, some must move within them, and others must do both. Solids vary in their form; they can be soft or porous like leaves, sand, skin, and snow, or hard like rock, ice, or tree bark. Movement can involve a whole living system, such as an ostrich running across the ground or an earthworm burrowing through the soil. It can also involve just part of a living system, such as a mosquito poking its mouthparts into skin. Solids vary in smoothness, stickiness, moisture content, density, etc, each of which presents different challenges. As a result, living systems have adaptations to meet one, and sometimes multiple, challenges. For example, some insects must be able to hold onto both rough and slippery leaf surfaces due to the diversity in their environment.

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Novel hydrogels from Gel Matter lubricate, adhere, and protect—functioning like natural mucus.

Benefits

Alternative for animal harvested mucus
Eliminates ecological impact of animal harvesting
Eliminates contamination risks of natural mucus

Applications

Cosmetics, skincare
Antimicrobial and antiviral coatings
Lubricants
Biocompatible adhesives
Healthcare

UN Sustainable Development Goals Addressed

Goal 3: Good Health & Wellbeing
Goal 11: Sustainable Cities & Communities
Goal 12: Responsible Production & Consumption

The Challenge

Animals face exploitation for their mucus to be used in a wide variety of applications, including cosmetics, drug delivery agents, and biolubricants, posing significant sustainability and animal welfare concerns. Current practices involve farming animals like snails, pigs, and cows, and extracting mucus directly from them, resulting in contamination risks to consumers and inefficient, costly, and inconsistent production processes. The farming industry and current industrial harvesting of mucus also negatively impacts ecosystems, as livestock farming of larger animals exacerbates environmental degradation and climate change.

Biological Model

Animals produce mucus for diverse functions, such as tree-climbing in frogs, surface-gliding in snails, and eye lubrication in humans. At the chemical core of animal mucus is a fundamental component called ‘mucin’ that is responsible for protecting and lubricating organs in a range of species. Mucins have a unique structure of proteins and sugar molecules that help them to bind water for lubrication and create coatings to protect and hydrate body surfaces. In some cases, mucins can even change their structure, becoming either more liquid or more gel-like depending on the organism’s needs.

Innovation Details

Gel Matter offers sustainable, synthetic alternatives to natural mucus, avoiding the environmental and ethical issues of harvesting mucus from animals. The team’s lab made mucus mimics the functional properties of natural mucus, while remaining vegan, parasite-free, shelf-stable, and significantly cheaper to produce.

The team’s scalable mucus-production process relies on the science of s (long, repeating chains of molecules). The process breaks down into modular steps, allowing them to modify specific ingredients and features, such as the length and structure of polymer chains or the types of sugars and s involved. This allows them to “custom-build” mucus with different properties, such as being extra slippery, sticky, protective, or able to hold and release substances. These customizable materials can serve a range of functions in industries such as cosmetics, medicine, or engineering. Gel Matter’s novel process and technologies provide a versatile and customizable alternative to animal-derived mucus that can be integrated into existing manufacturing processes and industrial formulas.

The Human Factor

Inspired by the many functions of mucus in nature, a multidisciplinary team at City University of New York began a project where they collected over 40 types of mucus from 30 animal species to develop soft materials and hydrogels for humid conditions. Focusing on snail mucus, researchers identified chemical variations linked to adhesion, protection, and lubrication, leading to the creation of mucus prototypes that replicate these functionalities. During her PhD, Ilse Nava-Medina worked with natural-sourced proteins, such as gelatin, to create matrices for animal and human models, encountering the limitations of these materials. Motivated by these challenges and her expertise in mucus, she combined chemistry and to establish Gel Matter, pioneering innovative solutions inspired by nature.

Ray of Hope Accelerator

The Ray of Hope Accelerator supports an annual cohort of ten high-impact nature-inspired startups representing various sectors and regions addressing the world’s biggest environmental and sustainability challenges. The accelerator builds upon years of experience as the Ray of Hope Prize (2020-2023), which was created in honor of Ray C. Anderson, a business and sustainability leader and founder of Interface, Inc. Gel Matter was a participant in the 2024 Ray of Hope Accelerator.

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