SpiDentistry: The Intersection of Dentistry and Spider Silk

Spider silks are an ideal material for periodontal chips/gels because they are biocompatible, biodegradable, lightweight, strong, and create no immune response. Furthermore, the various silks types and forms allow for tunable materials and properties. Spider silk materials may have an advantage over other products because of the ability to release medication more consistently over a longer period of time and be adjusted as needed. Unlike products currently on the market, our chip/gels are biocompatible, which aids in reducing the bodies immune response to periodontal treatment. The ability to incorporate multiple bioactive compounds into the spider silk materials allows them to become multifunctional treatment devices against inflammatory response, infection, and other related complications that come from periodontitis. The purpose of this research project is to develop and test spider silk chips/gels and compare them with products currently on the market to determine the feasibility and potential of spider silk materials. To characterize these silk and conventional materials the release, activity, robustness, geometry, and longevity will be analyzed