A Sticky Situation

Gooey and slimy, these slugs leave behind their stickiness everywhere they go. But a careful look at their slime trails reveals that their goo is a liquid crystal. And in the medical field, their mucus has proved to be a crystal clear solution for wound healing and surgery.

For a long time, scientists have been looking for the perfect surgical adhesive that could seal wounds during surgery rather than the traditional methods of sewing or stapling the wounds closed, making the patient weaker or increasing the risk of secondary damage (“Tough Gel Adhesives for Wound Healing”). Now at first glance, Super Glue might seem like a simple, yet crazy solution, but the problem is that this glue is not flexible enough to seal wounds especially those relating to cardiological surgeries (Bichell).

However, researchers at the Wyss Institute developed what may seem as the perfect adhesive, inspired by these slugs. Arion subfuscus, a terrestrial slug, glues itself to wet surfaces in times of fear while still remaining soft and flexible. The extra goo that is secreted allows the slug to stick to the ground so that its predator cannot pull it off (Bichell). Because of this idiosyncratic response, their goo is not only flexible, but has been found to be capable of sticking to any tissues, including a beating heart, regardless of the blood or any other movement (“Tough Gel Adhesives for Wound Healing”).

Essentially, using the information they discovered from a slug, Jianyu Li, a scientist from Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, and her colleagues created a hydrogel adhesive that was “90% water from a compound secreted by algae that has similar properties as the slug mucus” (Bichell). This hydrogel is composed of two polymers: alginate and polyacrylamide, creating a network that is tough and can resist great amounts of tension, paralleling the functions of the cartilage. And when bound to positively-charged polymer molecules, they can bind to tissues and successfully do their job (“Tough Gel Adhesives for Wound Healing”). Not only would these newly-developed adhesives stick to organs, but also they are not toxic to humans as proved by a 24-hour test on human cells.

Animal tests have been conducted, and have been successful. The adhesives developed were able to stick to pig skin and even seal a pig’s heart (Bichell).

For all those who don’t like needles and definitely not satisfied with the stitches left over from surgery, this slug-inspired superglue may be the answer. But further years of testing may be necessary to firmly confirm that this is our slippery solution for surgical wound healing.

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Works Cited:

Arion Subfuscus Group: Arion Subfuscus. idtools.org/id/mollusc/factsheet.php?

name=Arion+subfuscus+group%3A+Arion+subfuscus.

Bichell, Rae Ellen. Slug Slime Inspires Scientists To Invent Sticky Surgical Glue. 27 July 2017,

www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/07/27/539473673/slug-slime-inspires-scientists-to-

invent-sticky-surgical-glue.

Tough Gel Adhesives for Wound Healing. 30 Nov. 2020, https://wyss.harvard.edu/technology/tough-

gel-adhesives-for-wound-healing.