Spiderman: We Have The Technology
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Kate | Tuesday, July 4, 2006 |
Fusing spider silk and silica;
Silica provides structural support to diatoms (single-celled organisms known for their remarkable nanostructural details) while silk proteins from spiders and silkworms are more flexible, stronger and able to self-assemble into readily defined structures. The Tufts researchers were able to design and clone genetic fusions of the encoding genes for these two proteins, and then generate these genetically engineered proteins into nanocomposites at ambient temperatures using only water. In contrast, high temperatures and harsh conditions are typically required by geochemical and industrial synthesis of silica in the laboratory.
Another remarkable detail about the spider silk-silica composite is its size. While past tests using silica have formed silica particles with a diameter between 0.5 and 10 nanometers, the silk-glass composite has a diameter size distribution between 0.5 and 2 nanometers. The smaller, more uniform size will provide better control and more options for processing, which would be “important benefits for biomedical and specialty materials,” according to the research.
About the Author: Kate is a freelance commercial and automotive airbrush artist living in Saskatchewan, Canada. She was one of the original guest bloggers at OTB in November 2004 and soon joined the permanent stable, contributing through January 2007.
Eventually, she turned to writing full time at her own blog, small dead animals, which was voted the Best Canadian Blog in the 2004 Weblog Awards and has been generally considered that country's best blog ever since.
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