Current Bio-inspiration from Fish Skin - Body Armour (Bio-inspiration Example 1)

In the previous post talked about the tough skin of the Pleco that served as a protection from predatory attack. Today’s post we talked about how the fish skin have inspired humanity.

Scientists at MIT and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have been developing body armour for that was inspired by the fish skin. The newly developed body armour based on the fish skin could lead to new flexible materials for a uniform that can withstand bullets and knives piercing.

Unfortunately, this invention was not inspired by the strong dermal plates of the Pleco, but was inspired by another freshwater fish called the Arapaima Gigas that also exhibit a tough armour skin besides the Pleco. The researchers has observed that the skin of the Arapaima Gigas is so tough that it could protect them from piranha bite. Although though, scientist found that the scales of the Arapaima Gigas is also flexible as they spread the stress created by the piranha’s teeth by flexing and twisting.

Thus, this observation from the Arapaima Gigas gives scientist the idea to develop a tough but flexible body armour for the military as well as security forces to replace the current armour that is heavy.  Scientist, Professor Stephan Rudykh found out that the skin of the Arapaima Gigas consists of the tough outer layer that provides protection and the inner soft elastic layer kept the skin flexible. This is similar to that of the Pleco as discussed in the previous post.

In this development, the flexibility and strength are always the competing against each other. While the strength increases, it always leads to lower flexibility. But Professor Stephan found that they could increase the strength of the armour by 40 times while only reducing the flexibility by 5 times. This was achieved by positioning the artificial hard plastic scale at a certain angle. Right now, the challenge is to develop the right material. But nevertheless, this development is still feasible.

3D printed fish scale - inspiration fro new body armour

Artificial Human Skin-Tissue Engineering

Tissue engineering is another similar field of interest in organism’s skin biomimicry. The study organism skins originate from the field biomaterial. Among the all studies carried out, the most significant and impactful application would be tissue engineering. Countless research and time were dedicated to study the biology of human skins. A unique ability of the human and animal cells which was self-regeneration sparks the interest of mankind to study this unique feature. Throughout the history of tissue engineering, experiments have been conducted to growing cells outside a living organism (in vitro). The aim of tissue engineering was to resort, maintain or even improve the tissue functions that are defective and lost or destroyed due to diseases and accidents. After numerous research cell biology, biomaterial science, imaging and characterization of surface and cell interaction, artificial human skin was developed. This artificial skin, better known as scaffolds are three dimensional porous solid biomaterials designed to perform some of the functions of the human skin. These functions are such as cell-biomaterial interaction, cell adhesion, transport of gases, nutrients and regulatory functions to allow cell survival. The most significant function of the scaffolds are to provoke minimal degree of inflammation and toxicity to the host body. The future approach in tissue engineering is to develop artificial skins with self-healing properties as well as easier adaptation on patients.

Reference

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3029185/The-body-armour-inspired-FISH-scales-Material-lead-bulletproof-uniforms.html

Dhandayuthapani, B. et al., 2011. Polymeric Scaffolds in Tissue Engineering Application: A Review. International Journal of Polymer Science, 2011, pp.1–19. Available at: http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijps/2011/290602/ 

National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, 2016, Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Available at: https://www.nibib.nih.gov/science-education/science-topics/tissue-engineering-and-regenerative-medicine.