Silk: from textiles to tissue regeneration

Silks, and in particular silks from silkworms cocoons, have been used for many years as suture filaments, more recently acquiring novel attention for other applications in medicine and namely in tissue en- gineering. The ‘‘silks success’’ should be attributed to the material versatile properties that can be tuned according to the requirements via tailored processing and post-treatment methods that, in turn, affect molecular structure, supramolecular conformation and final properties. By adjusting biopolymer architecture and chemical composition, the formation of the extra cellular matrix (ECM) can be triggered such as to guide cells to the generation of functional tissues. Crystallinity and morphologies at different scale level can induce different blood responses in terms of platelet adhesion and activation, modulate the interaction with the inflammatory system, and control the stem cell fate. Materials source, advanced processing strategies and selective chemical modifications can control chemistry and thus silk’s function. Silk fibroin can be used as polymer model to debate the relationship between material structure, physical and biological properties. The lecture will explore the history, uses and potential future of silk fibroin as elective materials for tissue engineering applications, starting from basic ‘‘primitive’’ bidimensional substrates till the design and fabrication of microniches populated 3D structures able to guide the cell behavior and the regenerative process.