Chemdraw professional 16

The ChemDraw Professional 16.0 was used to sketch the target compounds. Then, the target compounds, doxorubicin, and EVP were inserted into a single database and exposed to force field energy minimisation⁴² (link)^,43 (link).

Sodium alginate solution (0.5% and 1% w/v), gelatin type A solution (1–6% w/v), and silk fibroin solution (1–3% w/v) were prepared in Milli-Q water. Silk fibroin was extracted from the cocoons of the silkworm Bombyx mori.^{41 (link)} ChemDraw Professional 16.0 was used to draw the chemical structures of the polymers, presented in ESI Fig. S1.† For silk fibroin, briefly, cocoons were cut into small pieces. 5 g of cocoon pieces was boiled in 0.02 M sodium carbonate solution for 30 min. Following this the fibres were filtered out and washed thrice in distilled water and air-dried overnight. Dried fibres were dissolved in 9.3 M lithium bromide solution in a 1 : 4 volumetric ratio, over a period of 3–4 h with stirring, at room temperature. The dissolved silk fibroin (10 mL) was then dialyzed against 1 L Milli-Q water (with 6 changes) over a 48 h period using 10 K MWCO dialysis tubing (manufacturer). To determine the concentration of silk in solution, a small weighing boat was measured, and 0.5 mL of the silk solution was placed in the boat and allowed to dry at 60 °C. Once dry, the weight of the silk was determined and divided by 0.5 mL and the yielded weight per volume (w/v) percentage was calculated. Following this method, we obtained a yield of 3 ± 0.2%.