Applications of spider silk to regenerative medicine involving additive manufacture

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.