Reverse-engineering silk for modern days

How does one go about reinventing a material that has been around for more than 5,000 years? Fiorenzo G Omenetto’s ground-breaking research on silk opens possibilities that could have until now been relegated to the league of science fiction. The key components of silk are just water and protein.

And that’s what makes it sustainable – being processed all in water and at room temperature. It’s biodegradable and one can watch it dissolve instantaneously in a glass of water or have it stable for years. Omenetto tells us that it’s edible, implantable in the human body without causing any immune response.” In fact, it even gets reintegrated in the body.

Reinventing the use cases of silk involves reverse engineering the material, just like it’s done in the textile industry, where the cocoons are unwound, following which the fibres are used to weave exquisite creations. Omenetto explains that silk has some wonderful qualities including being able to interface with microelectronics and nano-scale technology. This essentially means that one can replicate even information from a DVD or an optical storage device onto a silk surface. But the versatility of the material is not limited to films oroptical storage.

Omenetto explains this as, “If you’re afraid of going to the doctor and getting stuck with a needle, we do microneedle arrays. You can do gears, nuts and bolts. And the gears work in water as well. So, you can think of alternative mechanical parts. Maybe you can use that liquid Kevlar if you need something strong to replace peripheral veins, for example, or maybe an entire bone in the human body.” The engineer makes a strong case for the use of silk as medical devices and implants as well. Its biodegradable and biocompatible nature allows one to implant it in the body without needing to retrieve what is implanted.