Episode 19: Talking to Hyunwoo Yuk about Barnicle-inspired surgical glue

Polymer Science Podcast

Hello and welcome, everyone, to the Polymer Science Podcast's last episode for 2021! In this episode we’ll be listening to my interview with Dr. Hyunwoo Yuk, an outstanding research scientist of mechanical and biomedical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I reached out to Dr. Yuk after finding his work on the development of a particularly interesting surgical glue – this glue can close and COMPLETELY seal an open wound in seconds… SECONDS! And the way they came up with this idea is absolutely barnacles… no really, the whole project was actually inspired by sea barnacles! Mother Nature has always been a powerful inspiration for scientific progress, so when Dr. Yuk and his team were tasked with designing a surgical glue that could surpass existing products, they recognized the robustly “sticky” nature of barnacles could provide valuable insight toward their cause. Tune in now to learn about how Dr. Yuk was able to accomplish this incredible task." Link to article: https://www.wired.com/story/this-barnacle-inspired-glue-seals-bleeding-organs-in-seconds/ Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy new Year! Thank you for listening