Wearable devices enable real-time monitoring of different physiological conditions, with the potential of improving fitness level and wellbeing of healthy individuals, but also the daily lives of patients affected by serious illnesses such as diabetes.<br/>The market offers various robust physical sensors connected to wireless platforms. The grand challenge is represented, however, by the realization and integration of low-cost chemical sensors capable of non-invasively track vital information concealed in biological fluids such as breath, saliva, sweat, tears, and interstitial fluids.<br/>Their success mainly depends on robustness against noise, accuracy, and reliability (e.g. selectivity towards the target analyte) of the sensitive layer exposed to the sample of interest. Accordingly, recent advances in material science together with research efforts devoted to the integration of chemical sensors into microfluidic sampling units connected to wireless electronic platforms (e.g. Radio Frequency IDentification) will help overcoming most of the aforementioned obstacles.<br/>One of the solutions we propose is the exploitation of silk fibers obtained from Bombyx Mori cocoons after a reverse engineering process tightly bound to their dissolution. This method gives the opportunity to obtain a versatile starting material with several potential applications that can be targeted upon opportune tuning of the process. Moreover, commercial silk fabrics can be used as the initial substrate to build devices with an improved flexibility, robustness and mechanical durability thanks to a better protection of the sensing area.<br/>Silk is not anymore just the old, glamorous textile icon of the fashion industry but it has the potential to bridge between the classical trendy clothing and forthcoming “smart outfits”.

Silk: A glamorous bridge between fashion and smart outfits

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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