(495e) Tissue Adhesives and Sealants: Sticky Solutions to Painful Problems

Tens of millions of people all over the world need some or the other forms of wound management each year for issues ranging from minor cuts to chronic traumatic wounds such as in surgeries. After several decades of research, at present surgical adhesives are being used as alternatives to sutures and staples for wound closure. However, their application is limited due to several issues ranging from poor adhesion in wet environments to toxicity and poor biocompatibility. With the current need for adhesives to replace sutures, the global market for surgical sealants and adhesives is expected to grow to $5.4 billion by 2030. My postdoctoral work takes cues from the way sea-mussels attach themselves strongly onto surfaces in the ocean to synthesize adhesives that mimic their chemistry using inexpensive, bio-derived and non-toxic ingredients such as zein (corn protein) and tannic acid (TA). These adhesives were studied on several different types of tissues yielding adhesion strengths that were very different across all the tissues. A long lasting adhesion between the tissue of interest and an adhesive depends on various factors including mechanical property matching between the underlying tissue and adhesive, composition of the tissue itself as well as the composition and adhesive bonding chemistry of the tissue adhesive. While the design of existing tissue adhesives is focused on achieving biocompatibility and high adhesion strengths, the impact of the above three major factors is often overlooked. My future research group will demystify the factors contributing to adhesion on various tissues so that tailored adhesives can be developed to satisfy tissue requirements. Moreover, I believe that the next generation adhesives must be designed not just for passive mechanical closure of wounds, but they must also promote wound healing via delivery of therapeutic drugs and cells. My group will develop adhesives with therapeutics incorporated in them to promote wound healing. Further, the role of adhesives in the healthcare sector does not just end at wound closure, they should also act as effective conductive interfaces for health monitoring and surgical devices. We will incorporate conducting nanoparticles into the adhesives to develop conductive adhesive interfaces for bioelectronic devices.