New Technology: Use Silk Materials To Make Degradable "Artificial Bones"

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School of Textile Science and Engineering, Xi'an University of Technology

Professor Fan Wei's team

Top journals in the field of materials

Published on Advanced Materials

with “Silk-fabric reinforced silk for artificial bones” Thematic

Research paper

The paper points out that

The biggest achievement of this research is

Made of low-cost silk material

Anggui people create bones

It is understood that metals and alloys are the most widely used materials in orthopaedic surgery. Compared with ceramics and polymers, they have high mechanical properties and strong corrosion resistance. However, there is a big difference in the elastic modulus between metal and alloy (~110 GPa) artificial bone and human bone (3~20 GPa), which will lead to stress shielding effect and stress on bone structure, leading to the loosening and ultimate failure of metal implants. In addition, metal implants may cause the immune response of the body, increase the risk of infection and slow down wound healing. Moreover, they are difficult to degrade after implantation, and usually need to be removed by secondary surgery.

Preparation and morphology of silk based artificial bone

As a natural protein polymer material, silk has excellent biocompatibility, biodegradability, processability and low cost, and is widely used in biomedical fields such as surgical suture, artificial skin, muscle, blood vessel and bone.

Biocompatibility of silk based artificial bone in vivo

In view of the problem between the application of metal and alloy (~110 GPa) artificial bone and human bone (3~20 GPa) in orthopaedic surgery at present, Professor Fan Wei's team and Professor Zhang Yingying's team of Tsinghua University ingeniously utilized the difference in crystallinity between silk (Silk II structure) and silk fibroin (Silk I structure), A kind of silk fibroin self reinforced composite (SFS) was prepared by hot pressing degummed silk fabric and regenerated silk fibroin. By adjusting the ratio of reinforcement structure to matrix, SFS can customize its mechanical properties and density to meet the requirements of bone implantation in different parts of the human body. More importantly, SFS has the ability to promote osteoblast proliferation and improve osteoblast activity, and can gradually degrade in vivo with bone healing, without secondary surgical resection, avoiding secondary pain of patients and saving medical costs.

SFS has great potential to replace traditional metal or ceramic implants. The relevant research of the team has been supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Shaanxi Provincial Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, Shaanxi Provincial Youth Innovation Team of Universities and Xi'an Central Hospital Project. The relevant research achievements of Professor Fan Wei's team have recently been published in the top journal Advanced Materials.

(Source: released by Xi'an)