Medical uses for silk

Cultivating silk moths  to produce silk threads for weaving into fabric is thought to have begun in China around 5000 years ago. Artificial selection over thousands of moth generations produced Bombyx mori, the domesticated moth that feeds on mulberry leaves and is still used to produce silk today. There is a multibillion-dollar global textile market for silk, but it also has some lesser known non-textile applications – including as surgical sutures.

Silk sutures have been in use since around 600BCE, and they are still used today following certain types of surgery. Around 30 years ago, David Kaplan, a biomedical engineering professor at Tufts University in Massachusetts, US, had a lightbulb moment, when he realised that silk could be useful for other medical applications too. This led to the birth of a new research field, which has resulted in a handful of approved products worldwide – so far. Many more silk medical products are in clinical trials and preclinical testing.