image: To help surgeons seal up small holes, BWH researchers have turned to an unlikely source for inspiration: the sandcastle worm. "The sandcastle worm secretes tiny granules packed with a protein-rich glue into its marine environment," said Yuhan Lee, Ph.D., pictured here, a first author of the work. Electrolytes in the sea water "trigger" these granules to rupture, producing a viscous glue that the worm uses to build its tube-shaped home. In the lab, the bioengineers have created a nanoparticle suspension of a viscous, water-insoluble glue using hydrophobic light-activating adhesive that can be easily injected into difficult-to-access regions of the body. Just like the sandcastle worm, following injection the glue can be triggered to reform into a viscous state that can strongly attach to tissue. The team's findings published in the journal of Advanced Healthcare Materials: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adhm.201500419/abstract view more
Credit: Photo credit: Diemut Strebe