Designing silk-based 3D architectures with controlled lamellar morphology

[Excerpt] The impressive mechanical properties, along with established biocompatibility and slow degradability, render silk as an interesting biomaterial for bone tissue engineering applications. New silk-based scaffolds resembling bone lamellar structure were successfully developed using a freeze-drying technique. The structure could be controlled directly by the solute concentration and freezing parameters. The lamellar scaffolds disclosed a controlled and regular morphology (lamellar thickness: µ3.5 mm; interlamelar distance: µ15 mm). In order to induce water stability, different posttreatments were studied including methanol treatment, water annealing and steam sterilization. [...]