Project Coordinators, Oxford Biomaterials have
developed a novel silk based biomaterial platform technology which they have
trademarked Spidrex.
The aim at the start of the project was to develop a composite BSM based on a
mineralised silk fibre lay combined with a gelled matrix of silk proteins. In
the event, such has been the progress made on the project with development of
silk protein matrices and incorporation into these of the natural constituent
of human bone, hydroxy-apatite mineral, that the use of a mineralised silk
fibre component was rendered obsolete. The resulting silk
fibroin-hydroxyapatite nanocomposites created have formed the basis of the
projects success. They have been demonstrated to be biomimetic of the structure
of human bone: a long chain fibrous structural protein (collagen in the case of
human bone, silk fibroin in the case of the SilkBone composites) interleaved
with nanocrystals of hydroxyapatite mineral. Non-foetal stem cell technology has
also successfully been developed and used to seed the BSM, and we have tested
human cell reactions to our BSM in vitro, in line with Directive
86/609/EEC. | 