Chapter 4 - Silk as a smart material for medical textiles, particularly as an artificial vascular graft

Abstract

Silk fibroin (SF) from Bombyx mori silkworm is well known as an excellent textile material and has been used as a suture material in surgery for more than 2,000 years. More recently, SF has gained popularity in numerous applications such as tissue engineering, drug delivery, and implanted devices. This is because of its tunable mechanical properties, environmental stability, biocompatibility, low immunogenicity, and biodegradability. Here, recent research on the structure of SF fibres, which possess a lamellar structure, using solid-state Nuclear Magnetic Resonance was introduced, followed by the preparation and characterization of small-diameter vascular grafts with SF fibres, and the evaluation of vascular grafts in vivo.