New Opportunities for an Ancient Material
By Fiorenzo G. Omenetto, David Kaplan. Science, 2010
1,372 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Insight into Silks Silkworms have been cultivated for thousands of years and their silk has been used to make fabrics for clothing, bed sheets, shirts, dresses, and for other applications like sutures. Spider silk is harder to harvest, and thus has not found such widespread use, but its fantastic combination of properties has made it a tempting material to study in detail. Omenetto and Kaplan (p. 528) review our understanding of silk chemistry, the limitations in being able to reconstitute silks and to generate them synthetically, and a range of applications that have been developed using silk materials. Spiders and silkworms generate silk protein fibers that embody strength and beauty. Orb webs are fascinating feats of bioengineering in nature, displaying magnificent architectures while providing essential survival utility for spiders. The unusual combination of high strength and extensibility is a characteristic unavailable to date in synthetic materials yet is attained in nature with a relatively simple protein processed from water. This biological template suggests new directions to emulate in the pursuit of new high-performance, multifunctional materials generated with a green chemistry and processing approach. These bio-inspired and high-technology materials can lead to multifunctional material platforms that integrate with living systems for medical materials and a host of other applications.
Subfields: Biomaterials, Immunology, Microbiology
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/623634b8cba9c1863ef5f22e7de209c2a71554c3
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Citations in the corpus
- Materials fabrication from Bombyx mori silk fibroin (2011, background): “The toughness of silk fibers is greater than the best synthetic materials, including Kevla”
- "Green" electronics: biodegradable and biocompatible materials and devices for sustainable future. (2014, positive): “25 Due to its biocompatibility and controlled bio-degradability, silk was employed as a platform for the fabrication of electronics for food sensing applications, 36 improved physiological recording and targeted drug delivery, 55 as well as biomedical implants.”
- New Generation Electron Beam Resists: A Review (2017, background): “as photonics, electronics, drug delivery and bioscaffolds.(75,76,77) Recently, engineers in Tufts University expanded the possibility of using silk as a”
- A review of microbial precipitation for sustainable construction (2015, neutral): “003 GPa) [75].”
- Biomineralization for sustainable construction - A review of processes and applications (2015, background): “Thus, the silk of the web frame and drag lines is more than 1000 times stiffer than the catching spirals (Omenetto and Kaplan, 2010).”
- Silk fibroin biomaterials for tissue regenerations. (2013, background): “The critical factors that determine the mechanical properties of any particular silk are the precise control of size, number, distribution, orientation and spatial arrangement of crystalline and non-crystalline domains at the nanometer scale [5,27].”