Tufts scientists make “solid” breakthrough
By Benjamin Witte

Taking their inspiration straight from the natural world, scientists at Tufts University have created a new, ultra-strong material that could potentially be used for bone and tooth repair.
  Led by Professor David L. Kaplan, a team of student and faculty investigators developed the brand-new material by successfully fusing two of nature‚Äôs strongest materials: spider silk and diatom glassy skeletons. Though maybe not immediately apparent, spider silk ‚Äì cobwebs, basically ‚Äì are incredibly sturdy. According to Kaplan, ‚ÄúIf you compare it on a weight basis, it‚Äôs stronger than steel. That‚Äôs why it‚Äôs unusual.‚Äù Diatoms, for their part, are microscopic marine organisms whose incredibly durable skeletons are ‚Äúbasically glass,‚Äù said the professor.

  ‚ÄúThe protein in those organisms that is responsible for the skeleton formation is what we borrow.  And so we basically combined that capability with the silk. So now we get what we call the best of both worlds. We get the benefits of the silk, in terms of properties and making materials, and we can now glassify them ‚Äì make glassy silks,‚Äù said Kaplan, who serves as both the chair of biomedical engineering and director of Tufts‚Äô Bioengineering and Biotechnology Center.
   From a medical standpoint, added Kaplan, the new ‚Äúglassy silk‚Äù material could have some very real and beneficial applications. In dentistry, for example, the material might be used as some sort of extra-strong organic filling. It could also be used for basic bone repair, he explained.
   This is not the first time Kaplan‚Äôs team ‚Äì which includes both undergraduate and graduate students from Tufts University‚Äôs various schools and departments ‚Äì has experimented with natural materials. In fact, the affable professor‚Äôs been interested in silk for some time now. ‚ÄúIn general our research here is focused on taking our lead from nature,‚Äù he said. ‚ÄúLooking at what I call interesting or novel materials made in nature, and looking for ways to understand how those materials are made.‚Äù
   Kaplan‚Äôs earlier silk research is actually being applied already toward treating patients who‚Äôve suffered from ruptured ACLs (anterior cruciate ligaments). On the market side of things, that particular research is being developed by a local company called Tissue Regeneration Inc, located in Somerville on Boston Avenue.
   Kaplan and his collaborators, among them Rajesh Naik from the Air Force Research Laboratory and Carol C. Perry of Nottingham Trent University in England, made public their most recent discovery in a report entitled ‚ÄúNovel Nanocomposites from Spider Silk-Silica Fusion (Chimeric) Proteins.‚Äù That report was published just this past week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
   ‚ÄúI‚Äôve been amazed at how positively it has been received,‚Äù said Kaplan, who headed off to Europe last week for a brief teaching stint in Belgrade. ‚ÄúIf you do what we do, any good scientist loves that discovery process,‚Äù he added. ‚ÄúI wouldn‚Äôt be doing what I do if I didn‚Äôt enjoy it.‚Äù