Therapeutic ultrasound triggered silk fibroin scaffold degradation
AssigneeCarnegie Mellon University
InventorsMegan K. DeBari, Xiaodan Niu, Bin He, Rosalyn Delia Abbott-Beauregard
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method and apparatus for degrading a hypodermal tissue scaffold involves exposing the scaffold to a low-intensity focused ultrasonic beam such as to induce transient cavitation of microbubbles trapped in the hydrophobic domains of the silk fibroin from which scaffold is constructed. In one embodiment, the ultrasonic beam is a 1 MHz pulsed signal having a period of approximately 500 ms. The weight reduction experienced by the scaffold as a function of the exposure time of the scaffold to the ultrasonic beam.
Claims26
A method for degrading a silk fibroin tissue scaffold comprising:
- exposing the scaffold to a beam of low-intensity, focused ultrasound to induce transient cavitation of microbubbles trapped in the hydrophobic domains of the silk fibroin;
- wherein the beam of low-intensity, focused ultrasound is a pulsed beam having a period between 450 and 550 ms.
An apparatus for degrading a silk fibroin tissue scaffold comprising:
- an ultrasonic transducer;
- a collimator, coupled to the output of the ultrasonic transducer;
- and
- a wave generator for driving the ultrasonic transducer;
- wherein focusing the apparatus on a scaffold induces transient cavitation of microbubbles trapped in the hydrophobic domains of the silk fibroin when the beam of low-intensity, focused ultrasound is a pulsed beam having a period between 450 and 550 ms.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.