Professor Cha, Hyung Joon (CE) and his research team have come up with a hydrogel which can be used as a biological adhesive, based on mussel proteins’ adh- esive nature; his research outcome was published in Biomacromolecules in May.
His team has also confirmed that a cross-link-formation reaction between iron ions and the protein allows it to have a ‘self-healing’ ability whereby its adhesive strength is maintained even after repetitive attachment and detachment.
Current medicinal biological adhesives, derived from class of fibrin, has a major drawback for its low adhesive strength in spite of its harmless nature. Numerous attempts were made to overcome this problem by using polymers, but high toxicity led to harmful side effects. Mussel protein has always been spotlighted as a source of an adhesive because it has none of the aforementioned problems. Unfortunately, there still exists a limitation: only a minute amount of protein can be extracted from a mussel. The introduction of genetically-engineered hydrogel has overcome all the aforementioned limitations.
“I will continue to carry out further research on this field because it has a potential to be used in both medicinal and electronic fields” said Prof. Cha.