Bioadhesives are of commercial interest because they tend to be biocompatible, i.e. useful for biomedical applications involving skin or other body tissue. Some work in wet environments and under water, while others can stick to low surface energy – non-polar surfaces like plastic. In recent years, the synthetic adhesives industry has been impacted by environmental concerns and health and safety issues relating to hazardous ingredients, volatile organic compound emissions, and difficulties in recycling or re mediating adhesives derived from petrochemical feedstocks. Rising oil prices may also stimulate commercial interest in biological alternatives to synthetic adhesives.
Shellac is an early example of a bioadhesive put to practical use. Additional examples now exist, with others in development:
* Commodity wood adhesive based on a bacterial exopolysaccharide
* USB PRF/Soy 2000, a commodity wood adhesive that is 50% soy hydrolysate and excels at finger-jointing green lumber
* Mussel adhesive proteins can assist in attaching cells to plastic surfaces in laboratory cell and tissue culture experiments (see External Links)
* The Notaden frog glue is under development for biomedical uses, e.g. as a surgical glue for orthopedic applications or as a hemostat
* Mucosal drug delivery applications. For example, films of mussel adhesive protein give comparable mucoadhesion to polycarbophil, a synthetic hydrogel used to achieve effective drug delivery at low drug doses. An increased residence time through adhesion to the mucosal surface, such as in the eye or the nose can lead to an improved absorption of the drug.
* Long-duration continuous imaging of diverse organs (via a wearable bioadhesive stretchable high-resolution ultrasound imaging patch, potentially enabling novel diagnostic and monitoring tools)
Several commercial methods of production are being researched:
* Direct chemical synthesis, e.g. incorporation of L-DOPA groups in synthetic polymers
* Fermentation of transgenic bacteria or yeasts that express bioadhesive protein genes
* Farming of natural organisms (small and large) that secrete bioadhesive materials