Unlocking the Secrets of Silk Fibroin and Chitosan: Techniques for Analyzing Biomaterials

Description

Silk fibroin and chitosan biomaterials are candidates for biomedical applications due to their biocompatibility and biodegradability. This webinar will review the ability of silk fibroin to encapsulate active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), and the resulting encapsulation efficiency will be analyzed with UV-Vis spectrophotometry.

Additionally, we will investigate how plasma treatment generates nanostructured surfaces on silk fibroin and chitosan, exposing functional groups such as amino (–NH₂) and hydroxyl (–OH) groups. These substrate-specific modifications enhance the materials' properties, for example, by reducing bacterial adhesion and influencing cell alignment and motility. We will examine these effects using advanced characterization techniques, including Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and atomic force microscopy (AFM).