The new paste can adhere to surfaces even when they are covered with blood, and can form a tight seal within about 15 seconds of application. Such a glue could offer a much more effective way to treat traumatic injuries and to help control bleeding during surgery, the researchers say.
“We are solving an adhesion problem in a challenging environment, which is this wet, dynamic environment of human tissues. At the same time, we are trying to translate this fundamental knowledge into real products that can save lives,” says Xuanhe Zhao, a professor of mechanical engineering and civil and environmental engineering at MIT and one of the senior authors of the study.
Christoph Nabzdyk, a cardiac anesthesiologist and critical care physician at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, is also a senior author of the paper, which appears today in Nature Biomedical Engineering. MIT Research Scientist Hyunwoo Yuk and postdoc Jingjing Wu are the lead authors of the study.
Natural inspiration
Finding ways to stop bleeding is a longstanding problem that has not been adequately solved, Zhao says. Sutures are commonly used to seal wounds, but putting stitches in place is a time-consuming process that usually isn’t possible for first responders to perform during an emergency situation. Among members of the military, blood loss is the leading cause of death following a traumatic injury, and among the general population, it is the second leading cause of death following a traumatic injury.