Washington, Oct 28 : A glue secreted by a tiny sea creature called the sandcastle worm could be the answer to a long-sought medical adhesive, specially for repairing bones broken in battlefield injuries and car crashes.

The traditional method of repairing shattered bones involves use of mechanical fasteners like pins and metal screws to support the bone during healing.

But according to researchers, achieving and maintaining alignment of small bone fragments using screws and wires is challenging, says a release of the American Chemical Society (ACS).    

Russell Stewart, bio-engineer at the University of Utah says this synthetic glue is based on complex coacervates, an ideal but so far unused method for making injectable adhesives.

Coacervates are tiny spherical droplets of assorted organic molecules (specifically, lipid molecules) that are held together by hydrophobic forces from a surrounding liquid. Hydrophobic forces are molecules or parts of molecules that have low or no affinity for water.    

The idea of using natural adhesives in medicine is an old one dating back to the first investigations of mussel adhesives in the 1980s. Yet almost 30 years later there are no adhesives based on natural adhesives used in the clinic, says Stewart.    

These findings were presented at the ACS' national meeting in Washington.    (IANS)