Abstract
Natural biomaterials are more and more used for the development of high technology solutions, setting the scene for a bio-based material economy that responds to the increasing demand of environmentally friendly products. Among natural biomaterials, silk fibre protein called silk fibroin (SF) produced by the Bombyx mori L. insect, recently found a broad range of applications in biomedical field. SF substrates display remarkable properties like controlled biodegradability, flexibility, mechanical resistance and optical transparency, solution processability. These properties combined with the water-based extraction and purification process make SF a promising material for sustainable manufacturing enabling to partially replace synthetic, plastic-based and non-biodegradable material use. The use of SF interfaces in biocompatible electronic or photonic devices for advanced biomedical applications has been recently highlighted. However, the use of a natural biomaterial is challenging due to the complex nature of the biological molecule, and it requires to tightly control biomaterial properties during all the manufacturing steps. In this work, we show the results obtained by in loco production of raw-material, defining the best condition for silkworm selection and growth. The assessment and standardization of extraction/purification methodology are reported with reference to the high purity and remarkable performance in terms of chemo-physical property and biocompatibility of the obtained SF products. Finally, we demonstrate the fabrication, characterization and validation of microfluidic and photonic components of a lab-on-a-chip device for biodiagnostic based on biomanufactured SF.
Highlights
Natural biomaterials are more and more used for the development of high technology solutions, setting the scene for a bio-based material economy that responds to the increasing demand of environmentally friendly products
We demonstrate and report the results obtained on the fabrication, characterization and validation of microfluidic and photonic components of a lab-on-a-chip device for biodiagnostic based on biomanufactured silk fibroin (SF)
We demonstrated that the cocoons of Bombyx mori fed with a Rhodamine B (RhB) added diet were coloured and enabled the extraction and purification of regenerated silk fibroin (RSF) and SF films containing RhB [13]
Summary
A major challenge toward bio-based economy consists in the replacement of fossil fuels on a broad scale, for energy applications, and for material, clothing and plastic application. The use of the RSF solution is interesting in the context of biomedical application [1–4] because it can be processed in various formats (films, fibres, nets, meshes, membranes, gels, sponges) retaining exceptional chemo-physical and biological properties In this context, SF displays the potential to be exploited as a raw material to become a technological material platform [3, 5] for eco-sustainable manufacturing. When dealing with naturally derived products and biomedical application it is highly desirable to establish and control the whole product lifecycle: from the raw material production to substrate preparation to technology validation In this view, the goal of our work is to define and control the whole silk chain by in loco production of the raw-material, 19 Silk Fibroin Based Technology for Industrial Biomanufacturing the assessment and standardization of extraction/purification methodology the characterization of the chemo-physical and biocompatibility properties of the obtained SF products. We demonstrate and report the results obtained on the fabrication, characterization and validation of microfluidic and photonic components of a lab-on-a-chip device for biodiagnostic based on biomanufactured SF
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