Bio-inspired glue keeps hearts securely sealed
Surgeries which demand that devices be quickly and safely secured inside the heart have long presented challenges to doctors working on children born with defects such as a hole in the heart. Sutures take too long to stitch and can stress the fragile tissue, and clinical adhesives can be toxic or lose their sticking power in blood or under dynamic conditions, such as within a beating heart. “About 40,000 babies are born with congenital heart defects in the United States annually, and those that require treatment are plagued with multiple surgeries to deliver or replace nondegradable implants that do not grow with young patients,” said Jeffrey Karp of the Division of Biomedical Engineering, BWH Department of Medicine, and an associate professor at Harvard Medical School (HMS). To address that problem, Karp and researchers from Harvard-affiliated Children’s Hospital Boston and Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed...