Researchers are working on new nature-based solutions to help in skin and bone repair, and the new method involves the use of silkworms and even shrimps.
With silkworms, scientists are hoping that they can be used to regenerate human tissue.
This research, funded by the European Union, is being conducted at multiple locations across the globe.
The researchers are trying to decode tissue engineering as a new strategy to tackle the growing need for surgeries or transplants needed in case of diseases, accidents or age-related issues.
Silk is now emerging as a promising nature-based option for stimulating human tissue to self-regenerate.
European Union (EU) funded research projects
One such study is SHIFT, which aims to find out how natural materials can help tissues create natural blood vessels through the tissue engineering process.
Partners of the EU-funded SHIFT project have designed several devices with bio-based polymers capable of promoting the regeneration of skin, bone, and cartilage during the implementation of MSCA-RISE REMIX (2017-2021).
SHIFT aims to take the research a step forward and design innovative, natural-based, scalable constructs that enhance angiogenesis for the treatment of widespread chronic pathologies, such as large defects in bone, and cartilage and the treatment of chronic wounds (ex., diabetic ulcer).
Further, the SkinTERM project is another one where researchers are trying to treat skin wounds by recapitulating skin embryonic development in adults while striving to regenerate rather than repair skin.
Skin organogenesis will be induced using key elements from the extracellular matrix of fetal skin and the skin of species that exhibit scarless regeneration, along with (stem) cells from relevant origins.
The starting point for the study is the remarkable capability of early fetal skin and skin from the spiny mouse (Acomys) to heal perfectly without scars/ contraction and with appendices such as hair follicles.
Silkworms, crabs, shrimps being studied to restore skin, bone, and cartilage
According to a recent report in Horizon: The EU Research and Innovation Magazine, the silk produced from thoroughbred silkworms can be used to build some sort of scaffold in damaged tissues.
The cells in these damaged tissues, using this scaffold, can then form new tissues and blood vessels.
According to the report , the process can be used to treat conditions such as diabetic ulcers and lower back pain.
The SHIFT team has been trying to find minimally invasive options that can be used to pass on the treatment to the patients’ bodies.
At the end of the SHIFT project, the team aims to have two or three prototypes using silkworms or other marine organisms that can directly benefit humans.
The teams are also looking at how they can use textile and food industry wastes to find out solutions for helping the human race.
Professor Antonella Motta, a researcher in bioengineering at the University of Trento in Italy and a prominent member of the SHIFT project, says that nature-based rather than synthetic approach is the way to go and thinks treatments harnessing SHIFT’s methods could become available in the early 2030s.
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