Porcupine quills modeled for potential medical use

BBC : Although the barbs on the ends of porcupine quills have long been known to be notoriously difficult to remove once they’ve pierced flesh, researchers have now found that those same barbs allow the quills to more easily penetrate the tissue in the first place. To better observe the tiny barbs on the quills’ conical black tips, the researchers colored them with a fluorescent dye. Then they experimented with both natural quills and synthetic ones, with and without barbs. The team found that barbed quills required 60â70% less force to penetrate muscle tissue than quills without barbs, writes Ella Davies for the BBC. According to Jeffrey Karp of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, the porcupine quill design could have multiple medical uses, including in the design of needles that are more easily inserted and next-generation medical adhesives to replace staples or sutures. Karp and co-authors published their findings yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.