Nature continues to be a source of inspiration to scientists. Today, scientists are looking to inhibit bacteria spread by using the pattern of shark’s skin. That’s right shark’s skin.
While it looks like shark’s skin is sleek and smooth like a dolphin’s, in fact it feels like coarse sandpaper to the touch. For decades, marine biologists knew this unique texture reduced drag and helped it glide silently through the water.
But in the early 2000s, materials scientists also observed that sharks are among the only slow-moving marine animals that don’t get coated in algae, barnacles, or bacterial slime. Their skin stays clean, even in stagnant waters.
To understand why bacteria hate shark’s skin, it is important to understand how its skin is constructed. Shark’s skin is covered in millions of microscopic, tooth-like scales called dermal denticles.
Under a high-powered microscope, scientists can see how these denticles form a distinct, repeating pattern of raised diamond-shaped ridges separated by tiny channels. The spacing of these ridges is the secret weapon. The gaps are so incredibly small—measuring just a few micrometers across—that they are perfectly optimized to disrupt bacteria.
When a bacterium lands on a surface, its survival strategy relies on colonization. It needs to attach firmly, reproduce, and secrete a slimy protective shield known as a biofilm. However, the sharp, tight topography of shark’s skin makes this impossible. The bacteria cannot stretch across the ridges to establish a secure foothold.
For the last century, human medicine has relied almost entirely on chemistry to fight bacteria, anti-bacterial and antibiotic agents are our weapons.
But bacteria are master adaptors. Every time a chemical agent is used, the strongest bacteria survive, mutate, and pass on their resistance. This has given rise to deadly superbugs like MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and C. diff, which thrive in hospital environments and kill tens of thousands of patients annually.
As modern medicine faces the rise of antibiotic-resistant superbugs, hospital designers are looking to the shark’s skin to design a permanent sterile surface. While shark skin cannot replace antibiotics, materials developed with shark skin technology can naturally repel microbes.
Bio-tech engineers have successfully replicated the micro-topography synthetically. By using advanced plastics and silicone, manufacturing companies have created a textured material covered in billions of these microscopic, diamond-shaped patterns.
In independent laboratory testing, sharkskin-inspired textured surfaces have been shown to reduce the attachment and colonization of dangerous bacteria like E. coli and MRSA by up to 94%.
Because the material requires no electricity, no chemical refills, and never runs out of potency, the real-world applications in healthcare are significant. High touch surfaces (like doorknobs) can be wrapped with sharkskin-inspired adhesive films to cut down on contamination. Medical devices can be developed using this texture methodology.
If we can harness this technology it will help us halt the spread and hence the creation of bacteria and superbugs. And we are doing it, not with a new miracle drug, but with the ancient geometry of the shark.
