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).
Attend this webinar and learn how:
- To use silk fibroin as a drug encapsulation biomaterial.
- NanoDrop Spectrophotometers can be used to determine drug encapsulation efficiency.
- To use plasma treatment to create nanostructures and expose functional groups on softpolymers like silk fibroin and chitosan.
- Nanostructures improve biomaterials by altering bacterial, cellular, and immune responses.
- To analyze plasma-modified biomaterials using advanced characterization techniques.
About the webinar speakers:
Jennifer Prestipino is an Applications Scientist at Thermo Fisher Scientific supporting the NanoDrop UV-Vis Spectrophotometer product line. She holds an MSc in Molecular Biology from Drexel University and a BSc in Microbiology, Biochemistry, and Molecular Biology from The Pennsylvania State University.
Jennifer has extensive experience in designing and implementing molecular biology workflows, specializing in nucleic acid extraction, qPCR techniques, and UV-Vis spectroscopy and is proficient in gene therapy testing using qPCR and droplet digital PCR.
Viviana M. Posada is the principal investigator at BioANSR (BioAdvanced NanoSurfaces Research) in the Ken and Mary Alice Lindquist Department of Nuclear Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Posada earned her Ph.D. from Universidad Nacional de Colombia.
She refined her skills in biomaterials design and characterization techniques—including AFM, SEM, XRD, and FTIR—as well as in vitro and in vivo methods at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research focuses on nanomedicine, specifically enhancing radiopharmaceutical delivery and tissue integration with a focus on nanomechanical cues.
Who should attend this webinar?
This webinar is ideal for biomedical engineers, material scientists, pharmaceutical scientists, laboratory technicians, research scientists, and nanotechnologists.