Posted on 08/31/2021 10:40:14 AM PDT by Red Badger
Engineers have designed a strong, biocompatible glue that can seal injured tissues and stop bleeding, inspired by the sticky substance that barnacles use to cling to rocks. Credit: Stock Photo
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Mayo Clinic researchers and colleagues at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a rapid-sealing paste that can stop bleeding organs independent of clotting. The details are published in Nature Biomedical Engineering.
The inspiration for this paste? Barnacles.
Barnacles are those sea animals that adhere to rocks, the bottom of ships and large fish with the aim of staying in place despite wet conditions and variable surfaces. They’re successful because they exude a type of oil matrix that cleans the surface and repels moisture. Then they follow up with a protein that cross-links them with the molecules of the surface. That two-step process is what happens when the sealing paste is applied to organs or tissues.
Historically, surgeons would use a type of material that would speed up coagulation and form a clot to stop the bleeding. In the fastest cases, that would still take several minutes. In preclinical studies, this research team has shown the paste to stop bleeding in as little as 15 seconds, even before clotting has begun.
“Our data show how the paste achieves rapid hemostasis in a coagulation-independent fashion. The resulting tissue seal can withstand even high arterial pressures,” says Christoph Nabzdyk, M.D., a Mayo Clinic cardiac anesthesiologist and critical care physician. “We think the paste may be useful in stemming severe bleeding, including in internal organs, and in patients with clotting disorders or on blood thinners. This might become useful for the care of military and civilian trauma victims.” Dr. Nabzdyk is co-senior lead author of the study.
The paste consists of an injectable material that consists of a water-repelling oil matrix and bioadhesive microparticles. It’s the microparticles that link to each other and the surface of the tissue after the oil has provided a clean place to connect. The biomaterial slowly resorbs over a period of weeks.
The research was supported by MIT’s Deshpande Center, National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Army Research Office, The Zoll Foundation, and the Samsung Scholarship. The technology is protected by a shared patent between MIT and Mayo Clinic.
For more on this research, see Bio-Inspired, Blood-Repelling Tissue Glue Can Seal Wounds Quickly and Stop Bleeding.
Reference: “Rapid and coagulation-independent haemostatic sealing by a paste inspired by barnacle glue” by Hyunwoo Yuk, Jingjing Wu, Tiffany L. Sarrafian, Xinyu Mao, Claudia E. Varela, Ellen T. Roche, Leigh G. Griffiths, Christoph S. Nabzdyk and Xuanhe Zhao, 9 August 2021, Nature Biomedical Engineering. DOI: 10.1038/s41551-021-00769-y
Co-authors are Hyunwoo Yuk, Ph.D.; Jingjing Wu, Ph.D.; Xinyu Mao, Ph.D.; Claudia Varela; Ellen Roche, Ph.D.; and Xuanhe Zhao, Ph.D., of MIT, and Tiffany Sarrafian Griffiths, D.V.M., Ph.D., and Leigh Griffiths, Ph.D., of Mayo Clinic.
Life imitates art!..........................
They use super glue all the time for minor cuts that used to require stitches. I keep some around for that.
In the article it says it can withstand ARTERIAL PRESSURES!................
I recall articles in 1970s Popular Science how the study of barnacle glue.
But if you use it you are not allowed in several waterways.
They’ve been talking about this for a long time.
Also there was supposedly a whole promising area of antibiotic development that was going to derive from research into how frogs can survive skin lacerations in swampy, bacteria-filled environments. Maybe that will pay off one of these years too.
Anyway, this is good news, I’m not knocking it.
Why wasn’t it developed in China? Or in India? Hmm.
You still have to get it quick and expertly in case of a busted artery.
You’ll get stuck to the bottom of the boats?................
Many people would be surprised to find out how many “medical miracles” come from natural sources. It’s only “snake oil” if Big Pharma and the AMA don’t get the profits.
No more lost weapons caches! :-)
it appears gorilla glue may have competition...
Ditto on that - all our med kits have a tube; we were laughed at - once.
Just the ticket on the kitchen knife cuts.
I fell and put a nice gash in the back of my head a few months back. Went to the emergency room and they glued me back together, good as new. No stitches, in and out in no time.
I’ve been using crazy glue for decades.
Democrats need that barnacle glue on their lips.
I have two small bottles I keep in my first aid kits.
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