slug mucus band-aids

[Malcolm]

Kind of.

The current gold standard in medical adhesives is none other than superglue. The active compound in superglue, cyanoacrylate, is the toughest substance out there, but being strong is about all it has going for it. Superglue won’t stick to wet surfaces, which tends to be a problem with bleeding wounds. Once applied to a dry surface, it solidifies immediately into a stiff and unyielding plastic that breaks instead of moving with the body during healing. To top things off, it can be toxic to living cells.
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“A typical gel like Jell-o is stiff, but it’s brittle—if you press a spoon on it it splits,” Smith says. The slugs have figured out a way to be strong where gelatinous desserts are weak. He discovered that the mucus is 97 percent water, but woven through with two different polymers. The first is organized like a mesh net; it provides the strong backbone. Tangled through the mesh are extensive polymer chains that keep the mesh knitted together when stretched long distances. This so-called double matrix is the key to the strength and flexibility of the slug’s mucus.
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With a prototype, the team put its adhesive to the test. They performed mechanical stretching experiments, used the adhesive to patch up injured rat livers, and even demonstrated its strength in sealing a large defect in a beating pig heart. In every trial their slug-inspired adhesive outperformed all the commercially available products, moving flexibly with healing livers and pumping hearts, all with no toxicity evident.