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Regeneration of silk fibroin into an aqueous suspension (please, refer to Step 1-23 in Rockwood et al. Nature Protocols, 6, 1612–1631 (2011) in background reading).
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Fabrication of an edible, implantable, biodegradable diffraction grating through soft lithography (please, refer to Step 25H in Rockwood et al. Nature Protocols, 6, 1612–1631 (2011) in background reading).
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Superfab Assignment - Biomanufacturing in 3D Using the silk suspension obtained in Assignment #1 in combination with a XYZ dispensing system for the 3D printing of silk fibroin
Edit Reagents Aside from standard laboratory equipment such us personal protection garments, hot plates, spatula, etc. the following materials are required:
Extraction of silk fibroin
- Delipided and pre-washed silk cocoons (prepackaged, shipped to you by Silklab)
- Sodium carbonate (Sigma-Aldrich, cat. no. 451614, http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/)
- Ultrapure water
- Lithium bromide (LiBr, Sigma-Aldrich, cat. no. 213225, http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/)
- Slide-A-Lyzer dialysis cassette 3500 MWCO, 3–12 ml capacity (Thermo Scientific, cat. no. 66110, http://www.fishersci.com/)
- Syringe (20 ml; BD Medical, cat. no. 309661, http://www.fishersci.com/)
- Needles (18G; BD Medical, cat. no. 305195, http://www.fishersci.com/)
Fabrication of Patterned silk films
- Aqueous silk solution, 8% (wt/vol)
- Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS; Sylgard 184, Ellsworth Adhesives, cat. no. 184, SIL ELAST KIT 0.5KG, http://www.ellsworth.com/)
- Diffraction grating: size, number of grooves and depth of grooves can change (e.g. Edmund Optics, 600 grooves mm−1, 1,000 nm ruled diffraction grating, 50 × 50 mm, cat. no. NT43-208, http://www.edmundoptics.com/)