Pregnancy and birth are universally the most wonderful events in people’s lives, however in some cases surgery of the unborn child may be necessary to permit a healthy future into our world. To perform surgery, pediatric surgeons have to puncture the fragile amniotic sac during operation. Unfortunately, an absence of viable adhesive materials to heal or seal the amniotic sac post-surgery often results in preterm birth due to leakage of essential amniotic fluids and complete fracture of the amniotic sac. Because fetal surgery is usually performed early in gestation, preterm birth results in a low survival rate and therefore directly limits significant health benefits. Surprisingly, two decades of active investigation into commercial and novel sealants did not yield satisfying solutions. Inspired by the adhesive strength of <i>Mytilus californianus</i> in wet environments we developed a new (injectable) polymeric material based on orthogonal chemistries that results in tissue-like elastic properties, high toughness and excellent wet tissue adhesion (see image). Our work demonstrates that orthogonal supramolecular polymers are an attractive approach to tissue adhesives. Initial results showed that this novel polymeric sealant has high adhesive strength to bovine pericardium tissue compared to (commercial) medical sealants. To test the feasibility as fetal tissue sealant we plan experiments to determine the adhesive strength towards amniotic tissue. This work can easily be extended to other areas of medical adhesives through incremental changes to the (supramolecular) functional motifs and core monomers.

Bioinspired supramolecular polymers for tissue sealing

254th National Meeting (2017)

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