In pursuit of artificial silk, scientists imitate nature's designs

For cables that are stronger than steel, better bulletproof vests, microscopic biosensors and drug delivery schemes, scientists are turning to silk.

But a New York Times report on Monday describes the challenges researchers face in imitating Mother Nature's designs when it comes to mimicking the silk-making aptitude of the spider, whose silk-weaving skills are without equal in the Animal Kingdom.

In nature, silk is a formidable but flexible material: it binds, fastens and suspends without rigidity, weight or permanence. A spider's silk is of the best quality, but it can't be produced in sufficient quantities.

In the lab, however, artificial silk isn't quite up to par.

Henry Fountain reports:

Silk is a fibrous protein, produced in glands within the spider or silkworm and some insects. What these creatures do is something no laboratory has been able to achieve: control the chemistry so exquisitely that the silk, which is a liquid inside the organism, becomes a solid upon leaving it.

Chief among the advantages of natural silk is the way the proteins are organized. They are folded in complex ways that help give each silk its unique properties. Scientists have not been able to replicate that intricate folding.

Yet the applications have already presented themselves: tissue engineering, artificial medical implants (such as an artificial cornea or a drug delivery capsule), metamaterials that can manipulate radiation and, of course, use as an ultra-strong, featherweight material.

For now, researchers continue to pursue the blueprint to designs seen in nature. With hope, lab success will allow them to produce artificial silk at scale.

The Reinvention of Silk [New York Times]

Photo: Hu Tao/Tufts University

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com