New bio-inspired glue promises to revolutionize heart surgery

A team of doctors and researchers have come up with a brand new water-repellent light-activated glue that they say could represent a paradigm shift in surgical medicine and in the recovery of patients from surgical procedures.

Whenever doctors perform open heart surgery, to fix birth defects or in repairing damage, they not only need to act quickly, but they need something that can seal defects and incisions closed while holding up to the pressures and stresses that the beating heart can produce. Sutures can take too long and can put unwanted stress on the tissues at their most vulnerable time. Staples are quicker, but they don't provide a tight seal, and you have to back in afterwards to remove them. Most glues don't work in a wet environment, or they can't stand up to the stresses of blood pressure and muscle movement, or they're just too toxic.

However, taking inspiration from organisms like slugs, spiders and the sandcastle worm, the research team designed a glue that would seem to be the answer to all of those issues.

First off, it's non-toxic, so it's safe to use internally. It starts off with the consistency of honey, allowing it to be painted onto biodegradable patches for use in or on the heart, or directly onto smaller incisions in blood vessels, and since it's water-repellent, it sticks regardless of having a dry surface. The molecules of the glue stick to the natural connective collagen proteins of the heart tissues, and when the glue is exposed to ultraviolet light, it hardens, producing a seal that can stand up to blood pressures and the motion of the beating heart.

The glue is only in preclinical trials now, but a new startup company formed by members of the research team, called Gecko Biomedical, has already raised more then $10 million to develop it, and hope to bring it to market in three to five years.

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According to the researchers, roughly 1 in 100 babies born in the United States each year suffer from some kind of congenital heart defect, and the Heart and Stroke Foundation reports the same figure for here in Canada. Current methods to repair these defects typically require multiple surgeries, but this new glue and biodegradable patches could vastly improve both surgery times and recovery times for the young patients. With the preclinical trials being performed at Boston Children's Hospital, the natural focus of the discussion is use for children, but if it passes human trials, it could replace the use surgical staples and stitches in many more procedures as well.

(Image courtesy: Randal McKenzie/McKenzie Illustrations, Karp Laboratory)

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