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Silk-Based "Bioinks" for 3-D Printing of Tissues and Organs

By LabMedica International staff writers
Posted on 23 Sep 2015

Image: Raw silk from domesticated silk worms, showing its natural shine (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons).

Image: Raw silk from domesticated silk worms, showing its natural shine (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons).

A team of biomedical engineers has developed silk-based "bioinks" that do not require harsh chemical or heat curing and show promise for three-dimensional printing of biofunctional structures such as tissues or organs.

Investigators at Tufts University (Medford, MA, USA) reported in the August 7, 2015, online edition of the journal ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering that by incorporating nontoxic polyols such as glycerol into silk solutions, they had generated two-part bioink formulations with self-curing features at room temperature. By varying the formulations the crystallinity of the silk polymer matrix could be controlled to support printing in two- and three-dimensional formats interfaced with CAD (computer-aided design) geometry and with good feature resolution.

The bioink formulations produced fibers that were clear, flexible, stable in aqueous solution, and did not require any processing methods, such as high temperatures, that would limit their versatility.

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