Journal article
Glycerol-plasticized silk fibroin vascular grafts mimic key mechanical properties of native blood vessels
H Alkazemi, J Chai, BJ Allardyce, Z Lokmic-Tomkins, AJ O'Connor, DE Heath
Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part A | WILEY | Published : 2025
DOI: 10.1002/jbm.a.37802
Abstract
Cardiovascular diseases are a major global health challenge. Blood vessel disease and dysfunction are major contributors to this healthcare burden, and the development of tissue-engineered vascular grafts (TEVGs) is required, particularly for the replacement of small-diameter vessels. Silk fibroin (SF) is a widely used biomaterial for TEVG fabrication due to its high strength and biocompatibility. However, the stiffness of SF is much higher than that of native blood vessels (NBVs), which limits its application for vascular tissue engineering. In this study, SF was plasticized with glycerol to produce TEVGs exhibiting similar stiffness and ultimate tensile strength to those of NBVs. The elect..
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Awarded by University of Melbourne
Funding Acknowledgements
This work was performed in part at the Materials Characterization and Fabrication Platform (MCFP) at the University of Melbourne and the Victorian Node of the Australian National Fabrication Facility (ANFF). Furthermore, we would like to gratefully acknowledge the Biological Optical Microscopy Platform for their support and assistance with confocal microscopy imaging in this work. H.A. gratefully acknowledge the support of the University of Melbourne and an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship (Melbourne International Research Scholarship). A.O. gratefully acknowledges support of the Australian Research Council, The Brenda Shanahan Charitable Foundation, and St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne. D.H. would like to acknowledge the Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (FT190100280).