Silklab News

Videos and Podcasts

In April 2025, Mickey McManus gives a TED Talk on the biomaterial revolution, inspired by silk and nature’s regenerative design

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The ‘What’s Your Problem?’ podcast features Professor Fiorenzo Omenetto as he unravels the surprising secrets and futuristic potential of silk

Professor Omenetto presents the talk: 'The Living Materials Transforming Your Future' at The Explorers Club, New York, January 2025

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Marvel’s Spider-Man podcast explores the iconic superhero while featuring Professor Fiorenzo Omenetto, who shares insights into the science of real-life spider silk and its groundbreaking potential

Tufts reports on Silklab’s use of silk and its potential to revolutionize sustainable material processing

At the 2023 TEDxBoston Planetary Stewardship Summit, Professor Fiorenzo Omenetto discusses the critical importance of material choices in shaping a sustainable future

Tufts University released a video about Silklab's chemically sensing fabrics, and TuftsNow released an article, "New smart fabrics with bioactive inks monitor body and environment by changing color"

An October 2013 video: Leading-edge Technologies Session - Innovative City Forum

In 2011, Professor Omenetto gives a Ted Talk on "Silk, the ancient material of the future"

Articles

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Professor Fiorenzo Omenetto has won Optica’s 2025 R.W. Wood Prize for his pioneering work in silk-based optics and photonics.

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A TuftsNow November 2024 article reports on Professor Fiorenzo Omenetto receiving the Tufts Distinguished Innovator award

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A TuftsNow October 2024 article reports on Spider-Man inspired tech: liquid silk that hardens into strong, object-lifting fibers

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A TuftsNow August 2024 article reports on Macodes petola orchid's light-harvesting leaf cells and their potential for advanced biopolymer energy solutions

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A TuftsNow July 2024 article reports on a sustainable method for manufacturing microchips and other nanoscale devices

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Silklab hosted Tällberg workshop in May 2024 on sustainability

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A TuftsNow April 2024 article reports on Tufts being selected as a member of the ARPA-H Investor Catalyst Hub Spoke Network

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A TuftsNow March 2024 article reports on paper-based devices to track health, including Silklab's lactacte patches

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A TuftsNow October 2023 article reports on Silklab's strategies to integrate biology and electronics

Image of Silklab “chameleon” sneaker prototype with patterns made of silk inks

A TuftsNow September 2023 article: Silk Can Keep Your Food Fresher—and Make Your Glue Stickier

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A TuftsNow September 2023 article reports on Silklab's next-generation biomedical materials

- Click here to access the printed version of this article -

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A TuftsNow September 2023 article reports on the discovery of photonic crystal structures in ancient Roman glass

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A TuftsNow January 2023 article reports on Silklab's work on wearable, printable, shapeable Sensors

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A TuftsNow December 2022 article reports on the incredible power of silk-based edible food coating in reducing food waste

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Drug Discovery News reports on silk coating for oral administration of drugs

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RSI (Italian-speaking Swiss Radio & Television) hosts Prof. Omenetto for a meeting about 'The Music of Silk'

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Quanta Magazine and, notably, the Tufts and Silklab alumna Natalie Wolchover awarded the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory writing on the James Webb Space Telescope

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Professor Omenetto and PhD Student Luciana d’Amone discuss their research in the NOVA PBS documentary, Butterfly Blueprints (10:30 timestamp)

A poster for the DLS series featuring Professor Omenetto on February 10, 2022

Professor Omenetto was a 2022 Dinstinguished Lecturer at the Max Planck Institute: Living materials – manipulating light with forms of the past?"

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A January 2022 article by the American Institute of Physics in Phys.org features Silklab's perspective on silk as a material

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A June 2021 wired article titled "The Race to Put Silk in Nearly Everything" reviews the recent history of silk pioneering, and mentions a few silk startups co-founded by Prof. Omenetto

A photograph of what looks like a thin, bendy piece of plastic covered with a pattern of almost-complete golden squares

A June 2021 article in TuftsNow: "Inkjet Printing 'Impossible Materials'"

A photograph of a model airplane built using Silklab glue

"A TuftsNow June 2021 article reports on Silklab's work to Make Powerful Underwater Glue Inspired by Barnacles and Mussels"

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"A June 2021 New Scientist article: "Underwater glue made from silk can cling to surfaces like a barnacle"

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TuftsNow reports in May 2021 that "Tufts SilkLab Creates Leather-like Material from Silk Proteins"

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A Fast Company magazine issue: "This Fake Leather is Made From Silk"

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TuftsNow published in March 2021 the article "Controlled by Light Alone, New Smart Materials Twist, Bend and Move"

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A July 2020 TechTales article: "Smart fabrics with bioactive inks monitor body"

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A July 2020 Scientific American article: "Color-Changing Ink Turns Clothes into Giant Chemical Sensors"

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A TuftsNow November 2019 article: Unlocking Biological Materials for Better Therapies

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An October 2019 Phys Org article: "New silk materials can wrinkle into detailed patterns, then unwrinkle to be 'reprinted'"

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A September 2019 Scientific American article: "The Future of Silk"

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A May 2018 exhibit in the Barcelona Design Museum: "‘Design Does’: Lachesis – Drawing the Fabric of Life"

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A TuftsNow March 2018 article reports on a wireless real-time tooth-implanted sensor that can track what you eat

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A 2017 MIT Technology Video: "Spinning Silk into Sensors"

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A TuftsNow February 2017 article reports about an ultralight, robust and up to nano-scale programmable web made of silk nano fibers

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A December 2016 Phys Org article: "Engineers create programmable silk-based materials with embedded, pre-designed functions"

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A September 2015 Med Device article: "New Bioink Can 3D Print Tissue At Room Temperature"

Representative image of Ultrafast 3-D lasers micropatterning of biocompatible silk hydrogels

A TuftsNow September 2015 article: Ultrafast Lasers Offer 3-D Micropatterning of Biocompatible Silk Hydrogels

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A July 2015 New Atlas article: A July 2015 New Atlas article: "Silk-based functional inks put biosensor data on your fingertips"

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A June 2015 Science Friday article: "The Silk Road’s Turn Toward Biotechnology"

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A June 2015 CNN article: "The healing 'microchip' under your skin"

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A January 2015 Wired article: "Turning silk into edible food wrappers and flexible screens"

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A 2015 Video: "Materiali viventi per il futuro (Living materials for the future)"

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A November 2014 Forbes article: "Wireless Implant Eliminates Bacteria, Then Dissolves"

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An April 2014 Wall Street Journal article: "Bionics to Track Your Health"

Silk.based fabricated nanostructures to make cleaner green rooms

A TuftsNow March 2014 article: Fabricating Nanostructures with Silk Could Make Clean Rooms Green Rooms

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A March 2014 Chemistry World article: "Silkscreen printing goes nano"

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A September 2013 NBC article: "It's Alive(ish)! Brain Cells Grow and Respond in Artificial Tissue"

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A TuftsNow November 2012 article reports about tiny oral sensor may one day help dentists assess their patients’ oral and overall health

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A TuftsNow September 2012 article: Smooth as Silk "Transient Electronics" Dissolve in Body or Environment

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A TuftsNow December 2011 article: Silk Microneedles Deliver Controlled-Release Drugs Painlessly

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A TuftsNow February 2011 article: Common Threads, researchers expanding medical uses of silk

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A TuftsNow August 2010 article: Implantable Silk Metamaterials Could Advance Biomedicine, Biosensing

Image of biomedical engineering researchers Fiorenzo Omenetto, Ph.D., and David Kaplan, Ph.D.

A TuftsNow July 2010 article: Behind the Secrets of Silk Lie High-Tech Opportunities

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A TuftsNow August 2009 article: Silk-Based Optical Waveguides Meet Biomedical Needs

A TuftsNow August 2008 article: "Edible Optics" Could Make Food Safer