Gabe Perrone '08 Makes News with Silk Screws

Gabe Perrone ’08 is the lead author of an article recently published by Nature Communications, and picked up by the BBC, on the potential use of resorbable screws prepared from silk fibroin for pediatric craniofacial fracture repair.

Now a research assistant in Boston Children’s Sports Medicine Research lab, he described the project he began working on in the summer of 2010 after his sophomore year at Tufts University. The research became the basis for his master’s thesis in mechanical engineering which he earned from Tufts in 2013.
 
“Currently screws are made of metal but may cause problems when left in the body, such as temperature sensitivity and tactile sensation,” he noted. “Silk screws may be advantageous because they will degrade in the body, eliminating long-term complications or need for removal.
 
“Stress shielding is another area where silk devices may excel. Stress shielding refers to the implant, such as metallic screws and plates, bearing most of the load that the bone typically experiences. Bones will remodel based on the load they are under so if they are only experiencing minimal loading, they may remodel weaker than a normal healthy bone. Silk screws are obviously weaker than metallic devices so stress shielding is not a real consideration, and the bones should remodel better.”
 
Working with lead investigator David Kaplan, who is head of biomedical engineering at Tufts, Perrone was involved with the manufacturing, development, mechanical characterization, animal surgeries, and in vitro studies of the devices. The initial studies were done on rat femurs with appropriately scaled screws, but Perrone believes the screws can be scaled up to proportionately larger sizes for humans and still take advantage of the resorbable function.
 
“Seeing the potential benefit to your research is definitely a huge motivator, especially when the research is so application specific,” said Perrone. “I really enjoyed the fact that we knew the type of patients and the application that this could be used for, and it really helped tailor the direction and goals of the project.”
 
“I definitely want to go to medical school in a couple of years, but not totally sure what I want to do in the long run,” he concluded. “I like that medical school gives you the flexibility to stay hands-on your entire life by doing surgeries, for example, but you also have the opportunity to do research as well.” 
 
Click here to read the BBC story on Perrone’s research.
 
 
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