Inspired by the sticky-feet of the gecko, scientists have developed a waterproof and biodegradable surgical bandage that may replace conventional sutures one day.

The new discovery published on Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could be used in the operating room in surgeries or to repair wounds.

The bandage has tiny “hills and valleys,” similar to those found on the gecko’s feet, which allows it to stick in a more secure manner onto wet tissues. This has been a major challenge to overcome for the Harvard-MIT team.

“There is a big need for bondable, tape-based adhesives that could be used to seal tissues,” lead researcher Jeffrey M. Karp, director of the Laboratory for Advanced Biomaterials and Stem Cell-Based Therapeutic at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston said quoted by the Washington Post.

There are other gecko-inspired glues that could be used in dry environments, but the new bandage would be suitable for use in wet environments, such as in heart, bladder or lung tissue. And it’s also biodegradable, which means that it could be left inside the body without any risks.

When creating the bandage, the scientists looked directly at the gecko and learned that it is able to cling to walls and ceilings using tiny corrugated structures called “nanoscale pillars” on its paws.

“The gecko has no glue, but it uses nanoscale pillars – a whole carpet of them, millions of them, to adhere to a surface. We decided we could incorporate nanostructures in the surface of our material to enhance the adhesion,” Karp said.

He also noted that the bandage could be used as a “general internal drug-delivery patch to deliver anti-inflammatories, antibiotics, or growth factors to encourage healing.”

The researchers want to create adhesives for specific tissues now, because each tissue type is different. Then they hope to start testing the new adhesive in clinical trials.