Bioadhesives reduce operation time and surgical complications. However, in the presence of blood, adhesion strength is often compromised. Inspired by the blood clotting activity of snake venom, we report a visible light–induced blood-resistant hemostatic adhesive (HAD) containing gelatin methacryloyl and reptilase, which is a hemocoagulase (HC) extracted from Bothrops atrox. HAD leads to the activation and aggregation of platelets and efficiently transforms fibrinogen into fibrin to achieve rapid hemostasis and seal the tissue. Blood clotting time with HAD was about 45 s compared with 5 to 6 min without HAD. HAD instantaneously achieved hemostasis on liver incision (~45 s) and cut rat tail (~34 s) and reduced blood loss by 79 and 78%, respectively. HAD is also efficient in sealing severely injured liver and abdominal aorta. HAD has great potential to bridge injured tissues by combing hemostasis with adhesives.

Blood plays an essential role in the human body. Hemorrhage is a critical cause of both military and civilian casualties. The human body has its own hemostatic mechanism that involves complex processes and has limited capacity. However, in emergency situations such as battlefields and hospitals, when the hemostatic mechanism of the human body itself cannot stop bleeding effectively, hemostatic materials are needed for saving lives. In this review, the hemostatic mechanisms and performance of the most commonly used hemostatic materials, (including fibrin, collagen, zeolite, gelatin, alginate, chitosan, cellulose and cyanoacrylate) and the commercial wound dressings based on these materials, will be discussed. These materials may have limitations, such as poor tissue adhesion, risk of infection and exothermic reactions, that may lessen their hemostatic efficacy and cause secondary injuries. High-performance hemostatic materials, therefore, have been designed and developed to improve hemostatic efficiency in clinical use. In this review, hemostatic materials with advanced performances, such as antibacterial capacity, superhydrophobicity/superhydrophilicity, superelasticity, high porosity and/or biomimicry, will be introduced. Future prospects of hemostatic materials will also be discussed in this review.

Tissue adhesives have been introduced as a promising alternative for the traditional wound closure method of suturing.

A versatile hydrogel with extraordinary mechanical strength and self-healing efficiency was developed by integrating physically crosslinked graphene oxide (GO) into a chemically crosslinked polyacrylic acid (PAA) network. The PAA–GO–Ca²⁺ hydrogel with dual-crosslinked networks exhibited remarkable mechanical properties, such as an outstanding stretchability to 2500% and high toughness (∼9.73 MJ m⁻³) along with high stiffness (Young's modulus:∼753.667 kPa). The hydrogel also showed a remarkable self-healing capability to maintain ∼87.47%, 88.02% and 86.93% of its tensile strength, tensile strain, and toughness, respectively, which was attributed to the reversible hydrogen bonding and ionic interactions of Ca²⁺ with PAA and GO. Reduction was further performed on 3D printed PAA–GO–Ca²⁺ hydrogels to reduce GO and produce conductive PAA–rGO–Ca²⁺ hydrogels as wearable biosensors for monitoring different human activities, ammonia detection and laser-driven actuators.

An alkali-induced egg white hydrogel achieved ultra-stretchability, self-healing and direct 3D printability for highly sensitive electronic sensor and humidity-responsive actuator fabrication.