Biological Glue Can Staunch A Cut In Just A Few Seconds

A new "biological glue" has been proven to stop high-pressure bleeding in pig hearts.

When someone gets a serious injury, the wound itself might not always be the only concern. In fact, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), uncontrolled post-traumatic hemorrhage is the leading cause of potentially preventable death among injured patients.

For the above reason, a team of researchers from Zhejiang University School of Medicine in China has been trying to find out a solution. Currently, they are working on something called a "biological glue". The team believe that this “miracle” glue will one day be able to prevent hearts and arteries from uncontrollable bleeding.

According to the mentioned researchers, all the current materials used for bleeding prevention, which are medically known as hemostatic agents, face a common problem. They can barely control bleeding from cardiac wounds and traumatic arterial due to their weak adhesion to mobile and wet tissues.

Instead of attempting to recreate the typical band-aid, researchers decide to resemble something known as the extracellular matrix (ECM). Every animal is made out of cells. Most of them have ECMs, or places within their body in which carbohydrates mix with collagen protein to form a complex 3D mesh. In addition, the building blocks of the body's connective tissues, collagen, can be found within the ECMs. Your muscles, your joints, and even your teeth are all relying on the ECMs to keep things in place. 

By mimicking the working mechanism of the ECMs, the bioglue can stick to the internal tissue.  Although this invention hasn't been tested on humans yet, it has done substantially well in testing on pig hearts, which share a lot of similarities with human hearts. 

The scientists say: