{"id":246854,"date":"2026-11-08T06:06:10","date_gmt":"2026-11-08T12:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/11\/sea-cucumber-inspired-gel-could-help-heal-damaged-tissue-in-humans"},"modified":"2026-11-08T06:06:10","modified_gmt":"2026-11-08T12:06:10","slug":"sea-cucumber-inspired-gel-could-help-heal-damaged-tissue-in-humans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/11\/sea-cucumber-inspired-gel-could-help-heal-damaged-tissue-in-humans","title":{"rendered":"Sea cucumber\u2013inspired gel could help heal damaged tissue in humans"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Inspired by the ability of sea cucumbers to change the stiffness of their bodies, University of Waterloo researchers have developed a gel that could one day help repair damaged tendons and other soft tissues without leaving permanent material behind.<\/p>\n<p>A paper on the study, \u201cBioinspired Hydrogels with Broadly Programmable Mechanics for Soft-Tissue Interfaces,\u201d was recently published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.<\/p>\n<p>The water-rich material, known as a hydrogel, acts as a temporary support structure that allows new tissue to grow as the material gradually breaks down. Like the sea cucumbers that inspired it, the gel can be made softer or stiffer, potentially allowing it to support the healing of different tissues throughout the body.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Inspired by the ability of sea cucumbers to change the stiffness of their bodies, University of Waterloo researchers have developed a gel that could one day help repair damaged tendons and other soft tissues without leaving permanent material behind. A paper on the study, \u201cBioinspired Hydrogels with Broadly Programmable Mechanics for Soft-Tissue Interfaces,\u201d was recently [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":707,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1635],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-materials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/707"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246854\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}