Biomimicry of nature´s high-performance fiber

The overall objective of this proposal is to increase our knowledge of how nature designs and produces high-performance sustainable fibers, and to invent bioinspired processes with the aim of making truly biomimetic spider silk fibers. Our research is focused on spider silk, the toughest fiber known to man, and the gland in which it is produced.

We know that there are several cell types in the gland that secrete specific combinations of proteins, and these are added sequentially to the spinning feedstock, without mixing.

This means that the spider silk fiber likely contains several layers, but the number of layers and their protein composition remain largely unknown.

By using state of the art sequencing technologies we will determine the anatomical localization of the different cell types, and proteomics of silk fibers that are gradually dissolved will be used to fortify our findings.

Finally, we will produce recombinant silk proteins and design spinning devices that allow us to recapitulate architecture and composition of the native silk fiber, and produce truly biomimetic artificial silk fibers.