Biodegradable Medical SuperGlue for Soft Tissue Repair

New materials advances enable the application of adhesives in many fields. The development of wet adhesives greatly influences the medical field, as virtually all clinical adhesion and sealing procedures are performed on wet tissues. Medical-grade superglues (cyanoacrylates) have been widely used for external wound closure due to their rapid cure, high strength, and good infection barrier properties. While cyanoacrylate superglues are approved and widely used for external wound closure, they have not been approved by the FDA for many internal uses due to high cytotoxicity and the inability to degrade. Whereas a number of hydrogel-based medical adhesives, such as fibrin glue, albumin glue and PEG-based glues, are approved for internal procedures; however, this category of adhesives suffers from poor mechanical strength- often an order of magnitude or more weaker than superglues. As a consequence of the limitations described above, there is an enormous gap between superglues and hydrogel-based internal adhesives. A novel medical adhesive that has the features of a superglue (rapid curing, high mechanical strength, barrier properties) combined with high biocompatibility and degradability, is highly desirable. <br/>We have developed a novel underwater polymerization protocol of biomolecules, which allows ultrafast polymerization in contact with wet surfaces, thus mimicking the feature of cyanoacrylate superglues. The developed method's high modularity allows the application of the adhesive as a spray, brush, or patch. The adhesive shows instant and robust adhesion to metallic, polymeric, and wet tissue surfaces. In vitro studies confirmed the excellent biocompatibility and high bacteria barrier properties, a unique feature of topical medical adhesives. Moreover, the developed surgical superglue successfully sealed murine amniotic sac ruptures, increasing fetal survival from 0% to 100%.