Whether to perform surgery on a fetus is a heart-wrenching decision, but now, a team of researchers has come up with glue that could one day make the procedures safer. A well-known example of a severe birth defect that would make a fetus a candidate for surgery is spina bifida. To fix such problems a few decades ago, surgeons had to cut open a woman’s abdomen and womb. Now, doctors can use skinny endoscopic tools to perform operations through a small hole. Still, to reach the fetus, the instruments must penetrate the amniotic sac, which cannot heal or easily be sewn shut because it is so fragile. Sealing it with an adhesive is a challenge because the membrane is wet; additionally, delivering a surgical glue post-operation is a major hurdle.
To address the problem of wet adhesion, researchers have turned to mussels for inspiration. Mussels produce sticky substances that allow them to cling to rocks and ship hulls in wet environments, even under pounding waves.
Diederik Balkenende, from the University of California, Berkeley infused an adhesive ingredient from the mussel foot called dihydroxyphenylalanine which can then be drawn into a syringe. But getting the adhesive into clinical practice will take additional work.