The Four Worlds Podcast
The Four Worlds Podcast explores how a simple idea can grow into something that changes the world. Each episode takes you on a journey—from the spark of inspiration, through the creation process, innovation challenges, and to the path of real-world production.
From sketch to shelf and prototype to product, join us as we uncover the stories behind breakthrough inventions and innovations with the creators, engineers, designers, and visionaries who bring them to life.
The Four Worlds Podcast
Slug Science: Limax’s Healing Hydrogel Breakthrough
The secret to revolutionary medical adhesives might be hiding in your garden. Benjamin Freedman, PhD, and Phoebe Kwon of Limax Biosciences have developed a groundbreaking hydrogel technology inspired by slug slime. It's designed to adhere strongly to wet, dynamic tissues while staying flexible and stretchable.
Unlike traditional medical adhesives that focus on stickiness but turn brittle, Limax’s innovation combines powerful adhesion with remarkable cohesive properties. The result? A hydrogel that’s 90% water yet sticks firmly to actively moving organs like a beating heart—something no other material has achieved. The breakthrough moment came when the team successfully applied their creation to a pig’s heart during testing.
From their work at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering to the founding of Limax Biosciences in 2021, their journey exemplifies biomimicry—using nature’s time-tested designs to solve human challenges. After winning the Harvard President’s Innovation Challenge in 2022, the team has been refining their technology, tackling key considerations like resorbability, handling properties, storage, and sterilization.
What makes this hydrogel particularly promising is its versatility. Beyond sealing wounds or joining tissues, it can function as an advanced drug delivery system, holding up to 500mg/ml of medication (50x more than traditional hydrogels) while maintaining adhesive strength. That means localized drug delivery that stays in place for weeks instead of dispersing through the body.
As Limax works toward FDA approval, the focus is on completing pre-clinical trials in surgical models before moving into human clinical studies. Their goal is simple yet profound: putting this slug-inspired technology into the hands of clinicians to improve patient outcomes across a wide range of specialties.
Curious about how nature’s solutions might transform healthcare? Follow Limax Biosciences at limaxbiosciences.com or connect with them on LinkedIn to stay updated on their journey.
Welcome to the Four Worlds podcast from Tomorrow's World. Today we're diving into the latest in tech, science and sustainability, from nature's mysteries and the world of inspiration to the hands-on crafts of creation, the bold breakthroughs of innovation and the scaled-up wonders of production. This is your ticket to the stories shaping tomorrow, and welcome back everyone. Have you ever heard of biomimicry? So it's a design approach that views nature as a mentor, model and measure for creating sustainable solutions. With us today is Benjamin Friedman and Phoebe Kwan from WeMax Biosciences to discuss their slug inspired hydrogels. Before we get into all of that, thanks so much for joining us. How are you guys Doing?
Benjamin Freedman, PhD:well, how are you?
Steven Ruffing:doing Great. You know, this is another one we're excited for. We're really looking forward to this because it is an interesting concept. So what I will ask is if you just kind of introduce yourselves and tell me a little bit about LEMAX before we really get into what you guys do.
Benjamin Freedman, PhD:Sure sounds good. Well, thanks so much again for having us here. I'm really excited to share more about our story with you. So I'm Ben Friedman. I'm a founder of LEMAX Biosciences. I'm a bioengineer by training, and it's a technology that I've been working on for a number of years now, which is really the culmination of much of the work that I completed during my postdoctoral fellowship in Dave Mooney's lab at the Wyss Institute at Harvard University.
Steven Ruffing:And Phoebe what's your background, how did you get involved in WeMax Biosciences and kind of a little bit about your story.
Phoebe Kwon:So I have a background in biology and material science and I started working as a research tech at the Wyss Institute and through that I met Ben and started working on this project.
Steven Ruffing:No, that's great. So you meet at the Wyss Institute and then, in 2021, that's where LEMAX Biosciences started hitting the ground running. So what inspired? What was that inspiration behind getting this off the ground and that early vision from your time at the Wyss Institute?
Benjamin Freedman, PhD:So I came and started in the lab as a postdoc with a strong interest in tendon ligament biomechanics and at the beginning we were really focused on applying these materials to augment tendon and ligament healing.
Benjamin Freedman, PhD:And those studies were progressing.
Benjamin Freedman, PhD:And when everything started to shut down during the pandemic we had essentially applied to one of these NSFI core grants which enabled us to start to explore many other applications of the technology beyond orthopedics. And through those customer discovery interviews we started talking to experts in neurosurgery and dermatology and general surgery and plastic surgery and with those calls we started to realize the true platform potential of the technology. So when the pandemic started to wind down, when we returned to the lab we started undertaking a number of studies to really investigate the full platform potential of the technology and through those discussions and the data that we started to collect it became clear that there was some interesting commercial opportunity for the technology. We started getting involved with many different accelerators and incubators right on the Harvard campus, the Harvard Innovation Labs and others in the Boston ecosystem and through each of those engagements we learned more about the translational potential of the technology and it really motivated us to want to form a company in this space, to try to take the technology and translate it to ultimately impact patient care.
Steven Ruffing:And so when we're thinking about this HydroGel technology and I say slug-inspired, give me a little bit of background about that. When people hear slug-inspired, where does that inspiration come from? How did you land on slugs as the foundation for this innovation?
Benjamin Freedman, PhD:Yeah, so we're coming from the Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. We try to turn to nature for inspiration to try to engineer new materials and systems. So when we take a historical look back at existing bioadhesives and sealants, oftentimes researchers have focused primarily on generating strong adhesion under lung surfaces. You may have heard about muscle-inspired adhesives and other types of biopolymers, but these are confronted with one common limitation of the materials themselves have poor cohesive properties. The matrix that comprises them is essentially weak and brittle and they fracture. Even though they may interfere strongly, the overall matrix or hydrogel that supports them is weak and brittle. What we tried to do was turn to a different type of inspiration.
Benjamin Freedman, PhD:We came across the slug, particularly the dusty marion slug. It's actually a really interesting, cool garden creature. Slug slime has high stretchability. You can take slug slime and stretch it about 10 to 15 times its length without breaking. It's a hydrodial system. It's about 90% water. It's composed of ions, proteins and sugars which give it these interesting tough properties.
Benjamin Freedman, PhD:So we said, hey, this is much more of a stretchable, tough material. Maybe this would have different features if we tried to recapitulate them in our own materials. So, without using any slow components, we tried to create materials that behave in a similar way In the lab. What we did was we basically combined an existing hydrogel system that had been developed years before by some other former postdoctoral fellows in the laboratory, and we basically combined this dual-network hydrogel with a liquid-based adhesive surface which contains primary anemones that work as float slime and, lo and behold, the system stuck pretty strongly to wet tissue surfaces and we were surprised by how robust that adhesion was and it really drew us down and led us down the path of many interesting studies and collaborations. And here we are today.
Steven Ruffing:No, that's great. And with all of that background and coming up with that idea, taking the inspiration from slug slime, what was that maybe personal or clinical or even scientific moment that really sparked the need for this stretchable, wet, adhesive biomaterial?
Benjamin Freedman, PhD:Yeah, I mean we tried to test these materials in all sorts of extreme conditions and you know, one fun case for this is we. You know we had some active collaborations going on in some large animal studies. We stuck it to the surface of a feeding part of a pig and that image and video still, I think, strikes everybody today when they see it for the first time.
Steven Ruffing:A material that's 90% water.
Benjamin Freedman, PhD:That's highly stretchable sticking to an actively beating organ. You don't see that with any other material system that's been developed to date. So you know that I think has been a big aha moment for us as we look ahead towards what these materials can do and how they may potentially transform patient care.
Steven Ruffing:Right and Phoebe with your background. What was that moment like for you when you, as Ben said that aha moment? What was going through your mind when something finally clicked with this technology?
Phoebe Kwon:I've always been interested in improving patient lives and just because the current standard of care is very lacking and you know, you could imagine like a Band-Aid being stuck on what services like, that doesn't really work well. So you can imagine like having our hydrogel system stick in that environment and last, and you know, move with this dynamically moving tissue.
Steven Ruffing:that was, that was just like sorry, no, you're fine, just a big moment for you guys, I'm sure yes, it's a big moment for us so let's take it back. You know, lemax, biosciences 2021 when things really started, get to get rolling the fast forward to 2022, the harvard president's innovation challenge. How did that winning that award shape your belief and really, you know, set the standard for this mission?
Benjamin Freedman, PhD:Yeah, we were there. We were on the stage. There were hundreds of technologies that were being initially pitched as part of the innovation challenge, and then we were sitting on the stage with four other amazing teams in the Boston Harbor to give us a Winning. The challenge was huge for us to rocket and really kickstart our progress. The time that we were just coming out of the laboratory and having the support of the Burger Lake Foundation enabled us to start to take on some of those challenges. We were incredibly grateful for that initial financial support, as it really kicked off the initial product development for the technology on the startup side.
Steven Ruffing:Right, no, that's great. That's again another huge feat for you guys and winning that going into those early prototypes of the HEMA-MAX in this adhesive. How did those early prototypes kind of evolve from concept to, you know, a physical adhesive that can have practical use?
Benjamin Freedman, PhD:I mean, there's a lot of iterations in material science. You know the initial formulations that we worked with years ago. We've been taking active steps to simplify, you know. Do we need this component? Do we not need that component? How does this, you know, viewed in the eyes of the FDA? We've made a number of iterations over the years. So, for example, the initial formulation wasn't resorbable. We've made it resorbable and we've done other modifications to the system to sort of make it easier to handle core clinicians, whether it be. What size or shape should be? How long it's going to take to get it to set up? How should it be stored? What's the shelf life? There's all sorts of variables that come into play as we try to take it from an academic exercise into a viable product.
Steven Ruffing:And I think that leads kind of seamlessly into my next question and I'd love to hear both of your thoughts because I'm sure there might be different answers from you, ben, and from you, phoebe. Some of those challenges in designing the hydrogel, you know, that adheres so strongly but remains stretchable, and going through all of those variables, I'd love to hear some of those challenges that you know both of you have faced throughout the development process.
Benjamin Freedman, PhD:Yeah, so where to begin? I mean, let's talk about making the materials to grade. There are different ways to make them to grade. Do you want them to go fast or do you want them to go slow and kind of the bench size? What do the clinicians want? How is this very current vacation? All these areas are important points that you need feedback from end users, you need feedback from the FDA and then, of course, there's scientific constraints. So I think, as we kicked out that arm of the product, all those variables came into play, continue to come into play, and we want to make sure you're designing the product around the right form factor.
Steven Ruffing:And what about you, phoebe? Was there any maybe different challenges that you may have faced that might be a little different from Ben's, or did you kind of feel those same hurdles as this process moved along?
Phoebe Kwon:I think it's similar, I think, coming from an academic research, to translating it out into actual benchside use product definitely takes a lot of iteration and, as Ben mentioned, needs a lot of user input. So that could completely change the design that us scientists and engineers need to come up with. Yeah, it's like balancing the strength and the stretch and safe degradation. You know fda is always looking to make sure about like we're not putting toxic chemicals in our bodies, which are luckily ours is like bio-inspired, very bio-friendly, but other other standard care materials struggle with that a lot as well.
Steven Ruffing:So, being able to balance all of these different aspects of what goes into a medical device and when, just talking about all of those things that kind of go into it, I mean, let's say, guess what, it's not easy, it's not an easy process.
Benjamin Freedman, PhD:So some of those challenges and getting over those hurdles is incredible. And when you're going through all of that, what were those design is that? You know you must be able to cut it to any size or shape without it breaking or fracturing right. Oftentimes clinicians may want to do that on the operating field. That's a must-have. Another must-have, you know, is it's not requiring any sort of cold chain or refrigeration chain of refrigeration. A lot of existing materials that have been commercialized require cold storage To overcome some of those limitations. For transport, I might have applications both for civilian use as well as military. Dfd Removing cold chain is a must-have. Shelf life Some materials that have been commercialized contain human dry products. They have shorter shelf lives.
Benjamin Freedman, PhD:We don't have that problem. We can have extended shelf life and maintain performance. Another one could involve sterilization. There are some materials out there that can't be terminally sterilized, but ours can, and that enables new applications. So there's all sorts of must-haves when you design it. Of course, the materials have to perform well and they have to be superior to standard of care and they have to be in demand by clinicians. So we balance all those areas as we look towards new indications and applications. You know the list of must-haves or our target product profile is generated for those types of applications.
Steven Ruffing:Yeah, absolutely, and you know, throughout this process again, it's like a hands-on, all hands on deck kind of situation. You know, with a multidisciplinary team, you know from material science to clinical advisors. You two come from, you know different backgrounds and what you focus on. How did all that shape the development journey?
Benjamin Freedman, PhD:Yeah, so I think it's all about the team, about the team, and we look for folks to come on the team that share, you know, of course, common interests and you know collegiality, you know creating comfortable work environment and passion for what we're doing. But we also look for folks that can bring key skill sets and expertise. We like folks to feel validated as they bring those different areas to the team. So, you know, we have a core of material science and bioengineering, I'd say, but we also see clinicians that have a variety of different experience areas and different indications and dealing with different patient populations and may have an eye for translation, for how to design trials. We go to top regulatory folks. We go to top folks that can support us in animal studies and reimbursement and quality management. So we're always looking for the best talent. As we built the team so far and I look forward to building it even more in the future.
Steven Ruffing:Yeah, absolutely, and that team, I'm sure had a lot of hands in some of those key scientific breakthroughs, when we're talking about an adhesive that could be stronger than traditional sealants, that can stretch even more and work in wet and dynamic biological environments. So what were some of those key scientific breakthroughs as you explored all of that that can stretch even more and work in wet and dynamic biological environments.
Benjamin Freedman, PhD:So what were some of those key scientific breakthroughs as you explored all of that? Oh man, there's been a number. I mean. They seem to happen every couple of years or so. Knock on wood, they'll keep continuing that way.
Benjamin Freedman, PhD:I mean, the first one was a stretchable hydrogel. We won't take credit for that. That was developed previously by other members of the laboratory, but just creating a hydrogel that was stretchable was previously not demonstrated. So traditional hydrogels are weak or brittle. You don't stretch them more than a couple times their length. So back in 2012, when the stretchable tough hydrogel was developed, here's a system that's developed. You can stretch it 20 times its length without breaking. That was a step function, the fact that you could. Then it took another five years before we discovered that that material could be sticky to tissues, and since then we've seen an explosion in the field on developing tough hydrogel materials that can adhere. Such as us, there's others that are working in this space, all built on this same foundational principle. Since then, we've had milestones where we've made these systems work as integrated drug delivery systems, where we've shown that they can not only attach to wet surfaces but be able to deliver payloads locally for extended periods of time.
Benjamin Freedman, PhD:We've made milestones to make these materials absorb ever wet away. We've created milestones to make them attach to each other in other areas instantly, as well as simplifying the formulation to remove the need for the addition of any other coupling agents added to the system during its attachment to the tissue. So I'm not sure what the next big milestone will be, but these tend to happen with many and smaller breakthroughs along the way, and so we're eager to see what we come up with next.
Steven Ruffing:Oh, absolutely. I mean, there's a lot of potential here and I can't even imagine some of the you know, the breakthrough implications, the breakthrough potential that you hold in the future. And even just talking about that, that localized drug delivery, one of that, a big breakthrough there what, what problems does that solve that? Maybe existing methods, you know, might not.
Benjamin Freedman, PhD:yeah we think there's a few areas for local drug delivery, but one is is the ability for it to be local. Unlike existing materials they might just inject, this material can stick to the target tissue that you want it to go and it will stay there for weeks. So we think that's a one area that's useful and we think that the pipe that can serve as a local depot for a drug or any drug or existing drug delivery system is another advantage. In terms of the amount of drug, we can load unprecedented amounts of drug into the gel. Most hydrogels are typically pretty weak or brittle, as we talked about, and they're usually not loaded more than 1 or 10 mg per ml drug. We can load these materials up to 500 mg per mil drug. They still maintain their same percentage of early indication.
Benjamin Freedman, PhD:So we're looking at order of magnitude improvement there, all using very simple drug release strategies.
Steven Ruffing:So we think all these areas may open the doors for some opportunity for these materials as advanced drug delivery systems Absolutely, and we talked about you know some of the challenges getting into that and getting to that point, finding that localized drug delivery system. What about some regulatory and, of course, maybe some scientific hurdles that you faced when bringing this new class-absorbable adhesive to a class two or three device market? I'd love to hear about that some things that people might not know when it comes to any sort of medical development.
Benjamin Freedman, PhD:Sure. So for those tuning in that are new to the FDA space, or just device regulation. So there's different ways that devices are classified. Of course, if it's a device versus a biologic, even within the devices it's a device versus a biologic. Even within the devices. You know it's a class one, class two, class three device. The higher the class, the more scrutiny FDA will place on it. So our technology has applications in both class two and class three areas as well as combination product devices. And you know, depending on the class, it dictates how much testing is required for FDA approval, how much funding might be required to bring a technology to market. So you know we, as part of our program development, we're pursuing both areas actively and we've had several positive engagements with the FDA so far and we hope to share more exciting news soon. So please stay tuned for some press releases in this space to share more exciting news soon.
Steven Ruffing:So please stay tuned for some press releases in this space. Yeah, absolutely, again, we'll look forward to that and I'm sure you know, hopefully people will listen to this and keep an eye out as well. And so that is great. And just thinking about some of its capabilities and the wide range of different indications that it could do, how do you tailor Hemamax's tunable properties from those different applications, from minor wounds to internal hemorrhage control? Yeah, that's a great question.
Benjamin Freedman, PhD:So you know, I think, that the performance is similar. When we talk about the differences, you know how long that material may be in contact with the tissue for and if it will need to degrade or be removed over time, and so I think those are some of the biggest differences that we think about when we think about going from a class two product to a class three device.
Steven Ruffing:Yeah, no, that is. It is Thinking about that. It is something that's spectacular and how you even you know how you get it to that point. It really is. It really is great. I'm really interested in the production process as well. Let's talking about about scaling. How does that scaling production in the manufacturing process work? Is it in-house, leveraging partnerships? What does that kind of look like?
Benjamin Freedman, PhD:Yeah, so we are looking into various partnerships for this space, of course, developing some things in-house, but also ways that we can further enhance our scalability while keeping the team lean. So we are taking some active steps on both fronts to be able to produce these materials at scale and for the writing, different demands that will be necessary or the volumes that are going to be necessary to meet the clinical demands.
Steven Ruffing:No, yeah, that's, that's great. And and we talked about the future a little bit I'd love to know what does let's say it's so cliche, but that five year timeline look where do you see yourselves in five years? What's the future? What's? What are the next, uh, goals that you guys are trying to hit?
Phoebe Kwon:um, I think the next goals we're trying to hit are to finalize pre-clinical trials and key surgical models and then move into early feasibility human clinical studies and, yeah, and run pilot programs with searchable teams to refine usability.
Benjamin Freedman, PhD:And ultimately we're trying to get these materials into the hands of clinicians. So we're going to be looking towards at least one FDA approval in the coming years and hopefully some steps where we can then start to scale the technology and get it to impacting patient-wise.
Steven Ruffing:Yeah, absolutely. As we wrap this up, this was great for one thing. I mean, something like this and its capabilities is something that should make a lot of people excited. Just what you guys are doing, what you've been able to accomplish thus far, it really is great. What else would you guys want to add? That maybe that we left off, that people can kind of look forward to, kind of get excited about?
Benjamin Freedman, PhD:Yeah, I mean, if you're listening in, you're interested in, you know, joining our mission. Please do reach out. We're always looking to share what we're working with others and we're always looking to grow the team and, of course, fundraise for our next endeavor. So if there's anybody that's tuning in, that's interested in learning more, please don't hesitate to reach out.
Steven Ruffing:That leads me into my next question how can people stay in touch, keep up to date on all of the latest news from you guys from LeeMax Biosciences? Give the people a little bit of information of how they can maybe reach out or continue to follow along with the journey.
Phoebe Kwon:You can find us on lemaxbiosciencescom or also follow us on LinkedIn, and you can subscribe to our website and reach out.
Steven Ruffing:Yeah, no, that's great. We're looking forward to ourselves following along with the journey. We'd love to work together again, and I just can't thank you guys enough for taking the time out of your day and joining us on the show. Well, thanks again for having us.
Benjamin Freedman, PhD:I look forward to keeping you posted with all of our progress in the months to years ahead.
Steven Ruffing:Yeah, absolutely, definitely. Keep in touch. We're excited. We're excited about the future for LEMAX. Well, thanks very much again. We're excited about the future for for LEMAX. Well, thanks very much again. Yeah, absolutely, the pleasure was all ours. All right, everyone. That is all the time we have. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Four Worlds podcast. Until next time, you can catch up on the latest innovations shaping our world at tomorrowsworldtodaycom. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram, and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel.
