# Engineering highly elastic surgical sealants with hemostatic properties

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES · 2020 · $725,172

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
Approximately 114 million surgical and procedure-based wounds occur annually worldwide, including 36 million
from surgery in the U.S. Damages to delicate soft tissues, such as lung, liver, and blood vessels, are particularly
challenging to repair. When these tissues are punched for biopsy or injured during procedures, they must be
reconnected surgically using sutures, staples, or implantation of surgical meshes. Despite their common use in
clinics, these mechanical methods are associated with inevitable tissue damages caused by deep piercing and
ischemia. These methods are also time-consuming, demand surgeon's skills during the surgeries, and might
cause post-surgical complications such as infection. To resolve these issues, various types of surgical materials
have been used for sealing, reconnecting tissues, or attaching devices to tissues. Despite the emergence of
several surgical sealants, the biomaterials used as sealants/adhesives often have some drawbacks that limit
their applications, such as low mechanical flexibility, toxicity effects or toxic degradation products, poor adhesive
strength, and inability to control bleeding. Therefore, none of them meet all the necessary needs to replace
sutures and staples. An ideal surgical sealant is required to be flexible to adapt with dynamic movement of native
tissues, have excellent biocompatibility and controlled biodegradability, provide high adhesive strength and burst
pressure particularly in the presence of body fluids, and demonstrate hemostatic properties to prevent extensive
blood loss. In this proposal, we aim to engineer a novel, highly adhesive and hemostatic hydrogel-based surgical
sealant from a visible light activated, modified recombinant human protein methacryloyl tropoelastin (MeTro) and
hemostatic silicate nanoparticles (SNs). We will physically blend the engineered MeTro hydrogels with SNs to
form MeTro/SN composite hydrogels with highly adhesion and enhanced hemostatic performance. We will then
evaluate the function of the engineered surgical material as a hemostatic sealant in both small and large animal
models. Our preliminary data suggests that this material is superior to the existing products in the market and
may generate a paradigm-shifting surgical material that may not require sutures due to its superior mechanical,
adhesive, and hemostatic properties. The engineered highly adhesive and hemostatic surgical sealant can be
potentially used to stop air leakages after lung surgery and also support new tissue formation to repair the
defected sites. Due to the highly tunable properties of the engineered composite hydrogels, it is expected that
this system can also be used in various procedures such as anastomoses, cardiovascular surgeries, and wound
closure.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9918970
- **Project number:** 5R01HL140618-03
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES
- **Principal Investigator:** Nasim Annabi
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $725,172
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-01-01 → 2021-12-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9918970

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9918970, Engineering highly elastic surgical sealants with hemostatic properties (5R01HL140618-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9918970. Licensed CC0.

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