Scientists have developed "smart" plastic lines that can be automatically knotted

Scientists in the United States and Germany have newly developed a biodegradable polymer that has a shape memory function. The plastic line made of it has the “intelligence” that can be automatically knotted, and has potential uses in wound healing and other medical fields.

According to the American "Science" magazine online report, this "smart" plastic line is made of multi-block polymer, which can temporarily form a shape at a certain temperature, but at higher temperatures, it can be based on "Remember" and return to another fixed shape.

Scientists experimented with mice using "smart" plastic wires. They first kept the plastic line straight and then used it to loosely wrap a knot around the murine wound. When the ambient temperature rises to around 40 degrees Celsius, the plastic line tightens and eventually becomes a knot that effectively stitches the wound.

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States, who participated in the study, said that in endoscopic procedures such as endoscopic surgery, patients have limited space on the wound. It is not easy to sew the wound properly. Sutures that are too tight or too loose will not work, and "smart" plastic The line can be tailored to the desired degree of stitch tension and is expected to provide a solution to this problem.

Another benefit of the "smart" plastic line is that it can be biodegraded, that is, it can be "wired off" automatically as the wound heals. At present, other scientists are conducting research on shape memory polymers, but the new materials they developed are so far only biodegradable.