Many medical implants use hard materials that connect to or pass through soft body tissue. This mechanical mismatch can lead to problems like skin breakdown at abdominal feeding tubes in stroke patients and where wires pass through the chest to power assistive heart pumps. So researchers at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, are looking to a squid's beak as the model to make medical devices safer and more comfortable.
Nature has modeled the tip of a squid's beak to be very stiff and hard, but its base is as soft as the animal's gelatinous body. To connect these two mechanically disparate parts of the squid, the beak has a mechanical gradient that acts as a shock absorber so the animal can bite a fish with bone-crushing force yet suffer no wear and tear on its fleshy mouth. Copying this innovation could lead to making a range of medical devices more comfortable and safer for patients, from glucose sensors for diabetics to prosthetic arms and legs that attach to amputees' bones, the researchers say.
Their work was published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
"We're mimicking the architecture and the water-enhanced properties of the squid to generate these materials," said Stuart J. Rowan, the Kent H. Smith professor of macromolecular science and engineering at Case Western Reserve, and senior author.
