Regenerated silk fibroin as an inkjet printable biomaterial

Abstract

Regenerated silk fibroin (RSF) protein is an FDA approved biomaterial and has been used as a bio-ink to fabricate structures using inkjet printing. Silk can be present in water soluble amorphous (Silk I) and water insoluble crystalline conformations (Silk II) made up of beta-sheet structures. Here we show the generation of silk scaffolds by inkjet printing of water soluble RSF inks and then converting them into insoluble beta-sheet (Silk II) structure via a second ink containing methanol. This paper focuses on optimising printing conditions of RSF bio-ink through establishing the relationships between RSF peptide concentrations, number of layers and the total thickness of the printed layers. Various patterns such as dot arrays, lines, films, particles and logos have successfully been fabricated. The emerging of inkjet printing of RSF ink allows us to print delicate silk scaffold patterns for different applications specifically in biomedical field.