Reliable Spinning of Artificial Spider Silk

Again and again spiders have proven to be one of the most remarkable creatures that have proving their worth in all manners. Whether you are examining them closely for book lungs or the extended diversity of their species or complicated mechanisms that are used by these to develop venom. This class has been blessed with one of the most evolutionary stories in the complete animal kingdom. But the quality that stands tall among all is their ability to spin silk that is stronger than steel, lightweight, and completely biocompatible.

Researchers have been working on unravelling the secrets of industrial scale spider silk production. Although, it seems a straight solution to breed spiders for silk production, it has been found that these creatures do not do well in captivity. The silk generated is of insufficient quantity which means you can’t expect to start industrial scale production with them. In order to resolve this issue, a team of researchers from Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and the Karolinska Institute came together to engineers a step-by-step procedure that can help in generation of massive quantity of artificial spider silk along with strands capable of extending up to length of a kilometer.

Spinning of Artificial Spider Silk

Researcher Anna Rising says, “This is the first successful example of biomimetic spider silk spinning. We have designed a process that recapitulates many of the complex molecular mechanisms of native silk spinning. In the future this may allow industrial production of artificial spider silk for biomaterial applications or for the manufacture of advanced textiles.” The Swedish spider silk project is still moving at a snail pace towards industrial scale objective, this material will open a new avenue for generating a material that is quite close to the concept of spider silk. If the idea of spider silk production becomes a reality someday, we will be able to realize a few fantasies like space elevator cables, stronger medical supplies, stronger structural materials, as well as better electronics.