Abstract
Healing is an intrinsic ability in the incredibly biodiverse populations of the plant and animal kingdoms created through evolution. Plants and animals approach healing in similar ways but with unique pathways, such as damage containment in plants or clotting in animals. After analyzing the examples of healing and defense mechanisms found in living nature, eight prevalent mechanisms were identified: reversible muscle control, clotting, cellular response, layering, protective surfaces, vascular networks or capsules, exposure, and replenishable functional coatings. Then the relationship between these mechanisms, nature’s best (evolutionary) methods of mitigating and healing damage, and existing technology in self-healing materials are described. The goals of this top-level overview are to provide a framework for relating the behavior seen in living nature to bioinspired materials, act as a resource to addressing the limitations/problems with existing materials, and open up new avenues of insight and research into self-healing materials.
Highlights
The ability to heal is intrinsic to all multicellular organisms
The aim of this review is to understand healing and the defense mechanisms seen in living nature and apply them to bioinspired approaches in engineering
This review focuses on the multicellular plant and animal organisms, whose healing goal is homeostasis, or the body’s attempt to maintain itself
Summary
The ability to heal is intrinsic to all multicellular organisms. Every organism has evolved to occupy a specific role in the ecosystem, with underlying themes in reproduction, animal complexity, the food chain, and the environment [1,2,3]. 1 M of the 7.7 M animals thought to exist have been discovered [1,4,5], and on the order of 200,000 out of the 300,000 plant species thought to exist have been discovered [4,5]. This biological diversity has resulted in incredibly diverse types of healing and injury prevention found throughout nature. Having a clear and bounding definition of healing is paramount
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