Illustration of the novel medical glue being applied on an incision using a hot-glue gun. Photo courtesy of Technion SpokespersonHot-glue guns can be used for more than putting together cardboard furniture, home decorations and toys. Researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and Boston Children’s Hospital have developed a hot-glue gun to adhere torn human tissues together.
Most serious injuries are currently treated with staples and stitches that have many drawbacks. They are painful, leave scars, require high skill from the doctor, and sometimes have to be removed after the tissues heal.
Medical glue, on the other hand, can produce improved medical and cosmetic results. But the medical glues used today in dermatology and several other fields are very toxic and can be utilized only on the surface of the skin. In addition, hardening of the glue may make the organ less flexible or the adhesion may not be sufficiently strong.
With these limitations in mind, researchers have long been trying to develop a nontoxic glue that is suitable for different tissues and flexible after hardening. Such a glue would also need to decompose in the body after the tissue is fused together.
In an article published recently in the journal Advanced Functional Materials, Technion Biomaterials Laboratory head Prof. Boaz Mizrahi and doctoral student Alona Shagan introduce an invention that checks all those boxes.
The new approach is based on a biocompatible, low-melting-point, four‐armed N‐hydroxy succinimide‐modified polycaprolactone (star‐PCL‐NHS). Star‐PCL‐NHS is inserted into a hot-melt glue gun and melts upon minimal pressure, the team wrote.-- More...
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