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Silk-Based Optical Lenses Green Enough to Eat

Eric Bland, Discovery News

Still, just because a product can be made of silk doesn't mean it will be. The materials come at a high cost.

Feeding silk worms white mulberry leaves, their favorite food, is more expensive than pumping oil or melting sand, basic ingredients for plastic and glass (at least for now). Silk-based products would likely be limited to biomedical devices that are already relatively expensive or where toxicity and the ability to biodegrade are necessary.

The researchers proposed several uses for their silk-based material besides lenses. A silk-based material could be put in put into perishable food that would indicate if it has been contaminated. The material could also be implanted into the body and offer a person a year's-worth of insulin readings before dissolving harmlessly.

Kaplan notes that silk is already a Food and Drug Administration-approved biomedical material, which should speed up, or possibly eliminate, the lengthy FDA approval process.

Jayant Kumar, a material scientist at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell who was not involved in the Tufts research, thinks that the new silk-based products will still have to go through FDA approval.

"It has tremendous potential for biomedical applications beyond just optics," said Kumar. "This technique could be a great way to grow cells and tissues."

According to Kumar, the cultivated tissue could then be implanted into the body and the silk would eventually break down naturally.

"There are already other fibers that can do this," said Kumar. "But they are not easy to produce and are certainly not green at all."

Related Links:

Eric Bland's blog: Interior Design

Discovery Tech

How Stuff Works: Silk