Scientists Developed Artificial Spider Silk

Scientists were able to produce artificial spider silk.

Scientists have developed a new way of creating artificial spider silk using protein molecules. By using only 10 rice grains’ weight they can produce up to 1,5 miles of thread which is almost as strong as the natural fiber. Spider silk is known for its amazing properties but harvesting and applying it in real-life situations have proven difficult and expensive.

A team of international researchers from Spain, Sweden, the UK, and China has built a spinning device by taking inspiration from the spider anatomy. The machine is able to create synthetic silk more efficiently than any spider while still maintaining its amazing properties such as being stronger than Kevlar and being 30 times thinner than a human hair. Furthermore, the artificial silk is easier overall to produce and harvest, thus making it considerably cheaper than the real thing.

The study, published in the journal Natural Chemical Biology, reveals that the natural spider silk is made of several protein molecules commonly known as spidroins. They can be found in the spider’s silk glands and can be found in a very concentrated solution.

When the spider wants to release the web, the solution is squeezed through a small duct with an acidic and high-pressure environment which forces the molecules to link together and form the spider silk. As you know, spiders use it to create their webs which wouldn’t be possible if the silk wasn’t strong and had very low density.

Researchers experienced difficulties replicating the process the spider used. They were able to synthesize the spidroin protein molecules by programming bacteria and yeast to produce it but had trouble linking the molecules together into the fiber. However, they were able to create the artificial spider silk by developing their own narrow duct from what is known as a glass capillary tube measuring only 10 to 30 microns wide at the tip.

The researchers were successful in creating 125 milligrams of protein molecules using a liter of bacterial culture. As the molecules linked together, the researchers ended up with a km of silk from just their initial liter of bacterial culture. Despite being somewhat inferior to the natural silk, their silk was still superior in strength and elasticity than all other previous attempts at replicating the natural material.

Image source: Pixabay

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Nancy Young

When I was younger I used to spend almost all of my free time playing computer games. My mom and dad would go mental over this. “You’re never going to do anything with your life if you are going to play games all day” they used to say. What was even more unusual was the fact that I played more games than most of the guys in my friend group. Looking back, I have to admit that I probably played a bit too much, but I also learned a lot of great things. When I turned 20 I decided that it was high-time to make some money of my own, but the only jobs I could get were that of waitress or cashier. How exciting. After several excruciating months of serving tables I had a great idea: since I love gaming so much, why don’t I write about it? That’s when I started doing small writing projects on Elance. Eventually, I got an offer for a part-time job. During that time I learned all about content marketing strategies and how search engines work. I started writing about various topics such as technology, health and lifestyle and discovered that I was actually good at it. On November 24, 2014, I became part of the ArgyllFreePress team.