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MDPI, Polymers, 12(12), p. 2936, 2020

DOI: 10.3390/polym12122936

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Photo-Crosslinked Silk Fibroin for 3D Printing

Journal article published in 2020 by Xuan Mu ORCID, Jugal Kishore Sahoo ORCID, Peggy Cebe ORCID, David L. Kaplan ORCID
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

Silk fibroin in material formats provides robust mechanical properties, and thus is a promising protein for 3D printing inks for a range of applications, including tissue engineering, bioelectronics, and bio-optics. Among the various crosslinking mechanisms, photo-crosslinking is particularly useful for 3D printing with silk fibroin inks due to the rapid kinetics, tunable crosslinking dynamics, light-assisted shape control, and the option to use visible light as a biocompatible processing condition. Multiple photo-crosslinking approaches have been applied to native or chemically modified silk fibroin, including photo-oxidation and free radical methacrylate polymerization. The molecular characteristics of silk fibroin, i.e., conformational polymorphism, provide a unique method for crosslinking and microfabrication via light. The molecular design features of silk fibroin inks and the exploitation of photo-crosslinking mechanisms suggest the exciting potential for meeting many biomedical needs in the future.