Mussels hold themselves down to rocks with a tremendously strong and sticky protein glue. Professor
Phillip Messersmith of Northwestern university has developed synthetic glues that resemble the sticky muscle protein. They can be used to close surgical incisions in under one minute.
During a packed seminar in honor of Professor Robert Langer, the patriarch of tissue engineering, Messersmith described his research efforts and showed several videos that demonstrate the tremendous speed with which his glue can close an abdominal incision. Messersmith built upon the work of Professor Herbert Waite, who determined that the mussel glue contains large amounts of an amino acid called DOPA. To verify that DOPA contributes stickiness to the muscle glue and understand how it works, Messersmith used an atomic force microscope to pull on individual DOPA molecules until they came off of a solid surface. As was expected, the molecules stuck very strongly to several solid surfaces and even formed permanent covalent bonds to some of them. With the understanding that DOPA may be the key to making a sticky polymer, Messersmith set out to make a variety of biodegradable polymers that are made partially from DOPA and partially from traditionally non-toxic chemicals including ethylene glycol.
