New way to make biomedical devices from silk yields better products with tunable qualities

Researchers have developed a novel, significantly more efficient fabrication method for silk that allows them to heat and mold the material into solid forms for a wide range of applications, including medical devices. The physical properties of the end products can be 'tuned' for specific needs, and can be functionally modified with bioactive molecules, such as antibiotics and enzymes. The thermal modeling of silk enables manufacturing flexibility common to many plastics.