Photocrosslinking silk with riboflavin

Published:

When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, it might cause corneal injury. Currently, physicians can use glues to patch corneal tears, but these can take time to cure and rely on cytotoxic chemicals. Silk films doped with riboflavin can be applied to the site of the tear and photocrosslinked directly to the corneal collagen using blue or UV light. I also tested silk/riboflavin photocrosslinking as a resist in photolithography and showed that dityrosine crosslinking was responsible for gel formation.