Bombyx mori (silkworm) silk is a unique material, which has historically been highly regarded for its strength and luster. Physicians have used silk as a suture material for centuries and recently it has gained attention as a biomaterial due to several desirable properties. In particular, these properties include its biocompatibility, the ease with which it can be chemically modified4-8, its slow rate of degradation in vivo, and its ability to be processed into multiple material formats from either aqueous solution or an organic solvent9. Due to large-scale cultivation of silkworms for the textile industry, there are abundant and reasonable cost sources for this natural polymer, however, for medical applications proper extraction and preparation of the core protein is required. From the raw cocoons, the sericin component must be removed from the core fibroin fibers. Sericin is a group of soluble glycoproteins expressed in the middle silk gland of Bombyx mori10. These proteins cover the surface of fibroin, the silk filament core protein, in the cocoon filament. Once this adhesive protein is removed, then the fibroin fibers are dissolved into an aqueous solution that can be further processed into different materials. Some of the material formats that have been studied are shown in Fig 1. The following protocols can help with the design and implementation of a variety of silk-based biomaterials for a range of potential applications.