Advances in Protein-Based Materials: From Origin to Novel Biomaterials

Abstract

Biomaterials play a very important role in biomedicine and tissue engineering where they directly affect the cellular activities and their microenvironment. Myriad of techniques have been employed to fabricate a vast number natural, artificial and recombinant polymers in order to harness these biomaterials in tissue regene ration, drug delivery and various other applications. Despite of tremendous efforts made in this field during last few decades, advanced and new generation biomaterials are still lacking. Protein based biomaterials have emerged as an attractive alternatives due to their intrinsic properties like cell to cell interaction, structural support and cellular communications. Several protein based biomaterials like, collagen, keratin, elastin, silk protein and more recently recombinant proteins are being utilized in a number of biomedical and biotechnological processes. These protein-based biomaterials have enormous capabilities, which can completely revolutionize the biomaterial world. In this review, we address an up-to date review on the novel, protein-based biomaterials used for biomedical field including tissue engineering, medical science, regenerative medicine as well as drug delivery. Further, we have also emphasized the novel fabrication techniques associated with protein-based materials and implication of these biomaterials in the domain of biomedical engineering.