Stickiness of Geckos, Mussels Combined in Adhesive, Study Says

By Jack Kaskey

July 18 (Bloomberg) -- An experimental adhesive inspired by geckos and mussels may prove useful in health-care and military products requiring sticky substances that are reusable and work in water, researchers said in a study.

The adhesive, called geckel, can be removed and reapplied more than a 1,000 times without reduced effectiveness, similar to a Post-it note or a gecko's foot, said Phillip Messersmith, a biomedical engineer at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, who led the development and co-authored the study.

Messersmith had previously developed a protein that mimics the mussel's ability to cling to rocks. He applied it to a polymer covered with 200-nanometer pillars, replicating the tiny hairs on the gecko's foot pad that allow the animal to climb vertical surfaces and upside down. The combination is as sticky as a gecko's foot, even in water.

``I read a paper a couple years ago that described how gecko adhesives don't work under water,'' Messersmith said in a phone interview from Greece. ``I realized there was an opportunity.''

A study of geckel will be published tomorrow in the journal Nature.

The new adhesive could be used to make bandages that don't come off when bathing, as well as drug delivery patches, Messersmith said. Adhesive tape made of geckel may someday be used to close wounds, replacing sutures, he said.

The military could use geckel to allow submersible vehicles to cling to wet surfaces or to give scuba divers traction to crawl underwater, he said.

``There are challenges to making this a commercial product,'' Messersmith said. ``To be able to make this material at a large scale is not necessarily trivial.''

Messersmith said he licenses his discoveries through Northwestern to Nerites Corp., a closely held company in Madison, Wisconsin, where he is chief science adviser. Bruce P. Lee, co-author of the study to be published in Nature, is the company's senior scientist. The study's lead author, Haeshin Lee, is a graduate student.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jack Kaskey in New York at jkaskey@bloomberg.net .

Last Updated: July 18, 2007 13:05 EDT

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