HOW good would you be at tying knots through a tiny opening? It’s a challenge that many surgeons are having to face, as keyhole surgery becomes more and more widespread.
One of the toughest surgical techniques in keyhole surgery is tying stitches, or sutures, to close incisions. They have to be tied with the right amount of tension, explains Robert Langer, a chemical and biomedical engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. If the knot is too loose, the tissues won’t heal properly, and if it’s too tight it can destroy the surrounding tissue.
But now materials scientists have come…
