Gecko-Inspired Waterproof Bio Bandage Finding by Milota Sidorova

Gecko & the member of lizzard family regains his special attention once again. This small animal is able to run rapidly on the walls and ceilings convincing to defy the gravitation. More scientific explanation to this effect declared the fragile balance among adhesion and friction forces, originating from van der Waals forces which are controlled by the animal's feet. Gecko,a small lizzard, owes this extraordinary ability to his fine structure of the toes, containing setal arrays of numerous spatualaes on each seta.To be able to develop such a bio-tissue should mean, to create extremely adherrent biomembrane. Structure should replace damaged or defected bio membranes in a human body. Let's mention the most important ones & lung and heart diaphragm, stomach and guts etc....Replacing or repairing them should represent the key asset intoall kind of surgery.February 11, the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences publishes the findings of Massachusetts Institute of technology, with the team leader, a professor Robert Langer. Team succed and made a waterproof bandage inspired by the principles of gecko's climbing.The bandage immitates the surface of gecko's paws. Full of tinystructures, popularly said & small hills and valleys is able to resist in wet environment, for example vascular system, heart, lungs or gastric system. To make it stable in such a heterogenic environment, team used a sugarbased glue, to stick the computer designed bandage from bio rubber material firlmy to the current position.The first mounts have been tested on pig specimen. According to Jeffrey Karp, a collegue and a team member, there is huge demand for tape-based medical adhesive.Except of saving human lives, the impermeable bandage should be abused to carry drugs.,,You could also put drugs in these and use them as drug or cell-delivery mechanisms,"professor Lager said.

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080218/sc_nm/bandage_gecko_dc;_ylt=Ai3OowoZAvkZa3BFp7eCnFCs0NUE

by Milota Sidorova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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