MUSEOS DE LA SEDA / SILK MUSEUMS

was recovered to 628 tons in 1956. In 1941, the SSM is established as Sericulture Service, Autonomous Organization attached to the Institute for the Development of the Produc- tion of Textile Fibres. In this period, the facilities of the Station were shared with the Horticulture and Fruit Growing Station of Murcia, under the supervision of the National Institute of Agrarian Research (INIA). In 1967, when the decline of the industry was already clearly perceived, the Sericulture Service was abolished and its functions were carried out directly by INIA. Finally, in 1976 the low international prices of silk and the reduction of subsidies made silk production unsustainable for industry and farm- ers and this activity ceased completely. The facilities of the station were managed and administratively assumed by the INIA, constituting a unit associated with the so-called CRIDA 07 centralized in Valencia. The mission of this unit was to perform research and development activities in the field of agricultural production: irrigation techniques, plant breeding, plant protection, horticulture techniques, and so on. In 1984, once the autonomic regime, currently in force, was established, the unit, with the name of CIDA, developed the same functions under the control of the political and administrative section in charge of the agriculture in the Regional Government, the Consejería de Agricultura of the Autonomous Community of the Region of Murcia. Finally, the administrative sit- uation of CIDA was modernized, converting it into an autonomous Public Organism of Research (OPI) with the name of the Murcian Institute for Agrarian and Food Research and Development (IMIDA), attached to the Consejería de Agricultura, Agua y Medio Ambiente, by Law 8/2002 of October 30, a situation that is currently in force. IMIDA is a general agricultural and food research Institute that is structured in 6 Departments, with a workforce of about 150 persons (www.imida.es ). From 1976, the activity related to silk ceased. However, some of their workers continued carrying out an annual rearing for the maintenance of silkworm breeds, and a diverse collection of native and foreign mulberry trees was also maintained. Finally, in 2006, the Department of Biotechnology of the IMIDA began to develop a new line of work related to the silkworm but focussed on its new uses in the field of Biomedicine and Bio- technology, which emerged in the scientific literature around the year 2000. This line of work was developed and consolidated to the point that IMIDA obtained funding from the European Union ERDF Operational Plan for Infrastructure (Fondos Europeos de Desarrollo Regional, FEDER) that allowed the construction, in 2014, of a laboratory specialized in the research and development of silk biomaterials for Regenerative Medi- cine and Nanomedicine that is currently operating. This activity of research is fully active and continues the tradition and activity on the silkworm of the old SSM. Thus, with a break of 30 years of reduced sericultural activity, the IMIDA marks the continuity of the Sericiculture Station of Murcia, and accredits a research activity of more than 125 years in the field of Sericulture development, activity which was essential in the economy of the Region of Murcia for centuries. 3) The new applications of silk as a biomaterial in biomedical research and Regenerative Medicine Apart from its well-known use as a source of textile fibre, the silkworm has generated through the millennia of domestication a whole culture. As a part of that culture, the bio 60