Widusha Illeperuma

People of the future might have JELL-O for knees. Well, sort of: a new material called tough hydrogel, invented at Harvard in 2012, will revolutionize the way that damage to soft tissue and ligaments within the human body is treated. And it can help stop that kitchen fire, too.

Widusha Illeperuma has worked on tough hydrogel since the very early days of its creation. But while a substance like JELL-O contains only one polymer network, making it relatively easy to break, tough hydrogel contains two. “By combining two polymer networks, you can create a substance that is both soft and tough at the same time,” Illeperuma explains. The result, a mixture of alginate and polyacrylamide, “is tougher than most natural tissues.”

As its name suggests, hydrogel is made of 90 percent water. This makes it extremely fire retardant. Because it’s a solid, though, unlike water, it can hold its shape—using hydrogel, Illeperuma has made gloves and jackets, both of which withstand even the most direct flame.

Knees and fire-retardant jackets: these are just two of the ways that tough hydrogel is helping to solve long-standing problems in new and surprising ways. “In my work, I explore applications for novel materials that people have not thought about before.”