David Kaplan

David Kaplan: Weaving a Web to Regrow Bone

Professor David Kaplan and two graduate students have created a novel nanomaterial that, for the first time, combines the strength of spider silk with the intricate structure of silica. The resulting composite could be used in medical and industrial applications, such as growing bone tissue. Growth of bone requires a stiff, long-lasting but degradable, scaffold, hence the use of silica, a glasslike compound made by plankton; the proteins produced by golden silk orb weaver spiders provide toughness and flexibility.

"This is a novel engineering strategy to design and develop new 'chimeric' materials by combining two of Nature's most remarkable materials—spider silk and diatom glass skeletons—that normally are not found together," says Kaplan, Professor and Chair of Biomedical Engineering and director of Tufts' Bioengineering and Biotechnology Center.

Kaplan and his colleagues have been working with silk and its application in bioengineering for many years. A summary of this most recent study was published in the June 14 issue of Scientific American.