Researchers at Northwestern have created a new synthetic cement that mimics glue found in underwater mollusks. Their study was published on March 3 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
According to Nathan Gianneschi, the Jacob & Rosaline Cohn Professor of Chemistry and researcher on the project,
“The polymer could be used as an adhesive in a biomedical context, which means now you could stick it to a specific tissue in the body and keep other molecules nearby in one place, which would be useful in wound healing or repair.”
To test their new cement, the scientists applied the material on glass plates, washed them, and measured the percentage of cells that remained. The researchers found that the resulting substance retained more cells than the mollusk glue they used as a reference.
“We actually didn’t mean to improve on the mussel’s properties,” said Or Berger, the first author and a postdoctoral researcher in Gianneschi’s lab. “We only meant to mimic it, but when we went and tested it in several different assays, we actually got better properties than the native material in these settings.”
After successfully replicating the glue in mussels, Gianeschi, who also is associate director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology, hopes he and his team hope will advance their study in other proteins. Materials found in insect legs and wings might even be used to produce drones and other machines.
Learn more about the report in “Mussels’ underwater glue inspires synthetic cement.”