Formation of a thin-walled spider silk tube on a micromachined scaffold

This paper reports on the first formation of a thin bio-functionalized spider silk tube, supported by an internal micromachined scaffold, in which both the inside and outside of the tube wall are freely accessible. The silk tube could potentially be used as an artificial blood vessel in an in vitro tissue scaffold, where endothelial cells and tissue cells can grow on both sides of the silk tube.