Tunable backbone-degradable robust tissue adhesives via in situ radical ring-opening polymerization

This paper presents a novel in situ radical ring-opening polymerization (rROP) strategy to design a backbone-degradable robust adhesive (BDRA) for biomedical applications. The BDRA precursor, a mixture of hydrophobic cyclic ketene acetal and hydrophilic acrylate monomer, effectively wets and penetrates substrates, forming a deep covalently interpenetrating network with a degradable backbone. BDRAs demonstrate superior adhesion strength on diverse materials and tissues compared to commercial cyanoacrylate superglue, along with tunable degradability, mechanical modulus, and setting time. In vitro and in vivo studies confirm good biocompatibility.

Ran Yang, Xu Zhang, Binggang Chen, Qiuyan Yan, Jinghua Yin, Shifang Luan