A University of British Columbia researcher has helped
create a gel – based on the mussel’s knack for clinging to rocks, piers and
boat hulls – that can be painted onto the walls of blood vessels and stay put,
forming a protective barrier with potentially life-saving implications.
Co-invented by Assistant Professor Christian Kastrup while a
postdoctoral student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the gel is
similar to the amino acid that enables mussels to resist the power of churning
water. The variant that Kastrup and his collaborators created, described in the
current issue of the online journal PNAS Early Edition, can withstand the flow
of blood through arteries and veins.