Inkjet Printed Silk Can Sense Bacteria

Jun-19-15 A new method of inkjet printing with silk could open the door to anarray of medical smart materials, such as gloves able to sense bacteria.

Although researchers have proposed the idea of inkjet printing biomolecules, the compounds are too sensitive to heat to retain their function after printing. To overcome that obstacle, the team from Tufts University and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign turned to the silk protein fibroin, a natural polymer able to stabilize organic compounds, such as antibodies and growth factors.

Using the silk as a base material, the team tested an array of “custom library” functional silks, including printing bacterial-sensing PDAs on surgical gloves which changed the word ‘contaminated’ from blue to red when exposed to E.coli.

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[CO.UK]
[NOW.TUFTS.EDU]

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