Week 1: Literature Review

Hi everyone! This was my first week working on my senior project research! Like I mentioned in last week’s blog, in this first week I spent a lot of time doing literature review. I used Google Scholar to look at papers that were relevant to Silk Fibroin material (microsphere) fabrication and using SF for drug delivery. From there, I looked at the citations of papers which lead me to other relevant papers and resources.

There are a couple of questions you might have that I want to first address. You might be wondering why I chose to research using Silk Fibroin (SF) as the specific biomaterial to create microspheres with. Well from the research that I’ve seen, SF has several really important characteristics that make it good for biomedical applications. For example, SF is biocompatible (in that it is compatible with living tissue), slowly biodegradable, and is endowed with excellent mechanical properties and processability. In particular, the structure of silk fibroin and its tightly-packed amino acids, along with other characteristics such as its both hydrophobic and hydrophilic amino acid chains, allow for the product to have a versatile array of uses in many fields (Wang et al, 2010).

In the context of drug delivery, it has been demonstrated that Silk Fibroin matrices are able to successfully deliver protein drugs and preserve their potency. SF exhibits high encapsulation efficiency and controllable drug release kinetics due to the control of crystalline beta-sheet formation (Kim et al, 2015). I thought this would apply perfectly to treating Neonatal Respiratory Distress Syndrome (NRDS) because for treatment of NRDS, it is crucial for the pulmonary surfactant to be continuously delivered to the lungs as soon as possible. Due to its controlled degradation rate, SF would be able to facilitate this critical function.

But aside from its material properties, another reason initially I was really interested in silk and looking at silk proteins was because I actually used to raise silkworms when I was younger! Those silkworms I raised are actually the same exact breed, the Bombyx mori silkworm, as the ones that are commonly used in these materials science lab settings. I thought this was such a cool crossover from my personal life with this research!

(These are pictures of the silkworms that I raised when I was younger!)

Stay tuned for next week’s update, where I plan to have my initial methodology drafted, reviewed, and discussed with my mentor!

References:

Wang, X., Yucel, T., Lu, Q., Hu, X., & Kaplan, D. L. (2010). Silk nanospheres and microspheres from silk/PVA blend films for Drug Delivery. Biomaterials, 31(6), 1025–1035. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biomaterials.2009.11.002 

Kim, S. Y., Naskar, D., Kundu, S. C., Bishop, D. P., Doble, P. A., Boddy, A. V., Chan, H.-K., Wall, I. B., & Chrzanowski, W. (2015). Formulation of biologically-inspired silk-based drug carriers for pulmonary delivery targeted for Lung Cancer. Scientific Reports, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/srep11878