McGill chemistry professor Matthew Harrington investigates living organisms like mussels, mistletoe and velvet worms to better understand their remarkable properties.
“Our group studies bio-inspired materials,” says Harrington, co-director of the McGill Institute for Advanced Materials. Which means they look to nature, he says, to try to understand how living organisms can create materials such as spider silk that have such amazing properties.
The group’s goal is to create new materials sustainably that have better properties, says Harrington, who notes that materials made by living organisms are by definition environmentally friendly.
Mussels, for example, contain byssus – silky filaments that enable them to adhere to a rocky surface when crashing waves roll in. “They’re self-healing. They’re incredibly tough – as tough as Kevlar,” Harrington explains. “They’re capable of underwater adhesion, which is something that humans are terrible at, but that it would be really useful for surgical adhesives or dental cements, if we could understand how they do this.”
Harrington spoke to us about the pressing need for sustainable materials – and his research to that end on a nifty slime emitted by velvet worms.