Speaker : Chan Hum Park, M.D(School of Medicine, Hallym University)

Date : 2012-09-14

Location : Room 106，Pharmacy Hall, Dankook University

Abstract : Silk fibroin of silkworms has been widely studied as biomaterials. In our institute, we fabricated various types of biomaterials using silk fibroin. Silk patch presented no cytotoxicity in L929 cells and rat tissue. We investigated the degradation behavior of silk patch in vitro and in vivo, and the effects of repairing large tympanic membrane (TM) perforations in rats with a thin silk patch compared with the commonly used paper patch. The results indicated that silk patch is a good biocompatible and has a long degradation time as biomaterials. Also, we showed that silk patch treatment accelerates wound healing and shortens TM perforation closure time. 

 Next, we fabricated silk fibroin (SF) nanofiber mats by electrospinning to develop biodegradable electrospun dermal scaffolds to replace donor human dermis or bovine collagen for 3D skin reconstruction for future clinical use. We prepared SF nanofiber mats that were recrystallized in different ways. These mats were fabricated by electrospinning with ethanol/propanol mixtures of various blend ratios, and their biodegradabilities in vitro and in vivo were evaluated using rats. As a result, we can suggest an established method to modulate the degradability of SF nanofibrous materials based on long-term (12 months) observations. In particular, we elucidated how the SF nanofibers are degraded and incorporated with surrounding tissue by observation of fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC)–labeled SF nanofiber in vivo. Also we showed that SF nanofiber mats have a good biocompatibity and effect for wound healing. Our findings suggest that SF nanofiber mats could be materials to be utilized as dermal substitute for tissue engineering.