Bioengineer Fiorenzo Omenetto at Tufts University is using silkworm cocoons to develop new biosensors that can be inserted into patients and used as a tracking device to monitor a person's post-surgical progress or a chronic disease like diabetes.
Omenetto and other bioengineers already use silk proteins to make biological tissues such as corneal implants. And because they degrade naturally, Omenetto tells MIT Technology Review that he believes that silk proteins could serve to create new, implantable optical devices. He raises the prospect of using the biosensors for cancer, implanting them during tumor surgery to detect any later resurgence of the disease.
- read the article from MIT Technology Review