New glue could replace surgical sutures and staples

The non-toxic glue, which is modelled after adhesive proteins produced by mussels and other creatures, is said to have out-performed commercially available products, pointing toward potential surgical glues to replace sutures and staples.

Over 12 million traumatic wounds are treated every years in the United States alone and about 60 per cent of those wounds are closed using sutures and staples that can cause discomfort, higher risk of infection and damage to surrounding healthy tissue.

Most adhesives don't work well in moist environments because water interferes with the adhesion process. While developing adhesives that overcome this problem is challenging, glues for medical applications must also be non-toxic and biocompatible.

“We designed a bioinspired protein system that shows promise to achieve biocompatible underwater adhesion coupled with environmentally responsive behaviour that is ‘smart,’ meaning it can be tuned to suit a specific application,” said Julie Liu, an associate professor of chemical engineering and biomedical engineering at Purdue University.