Applications of spider silk to regenerative medicine involving additive manufacture

这个多学科项目将涉及几个相互关联的工作包。该学生将首先确定合适的重组蜘蛛丝和相容溶剂，用于3D结构的增材制造，用于再生医学或其他医疗保健应用。在展示了打印非功能化丝的能力之后，学生将研究在打印前或打印后添加功能化丝的化学和生物方法，并评估新的生物材料作为细胞支架的用途。该项目的最后一项工作将是研究作为可印刷基质的天然蜘蛛丝，并利用生物信息学来识别新的丝基因，这些基因可能会扩展目前使用的重组丝的特性。

This multidisciplinary project will involve several interconnected work packages. The student will first identify suitable recombinant spider silks and compatible solvents for use as inks in the additive manufacturing of 3D structures for use in regenerative medicine or other healthcare applications. Having demonstrated the ability to print the unfunctionalized silk, the student will examine chemical and biological methods of adding functionalization to the silk either pre- or post printing and the new biomaterials will be assessed for their use as cell scaffolds. The final strand of the project will be to examine natural spider silks as printable substrates and to use bioinformatics to identify new silk genes that may expand on the properties of the currently used recombinant silks.