Developing Aciniform Spider Silk Biomaterials with Unique Structural Transitions and Properties

AC silk has a number of novel properties that make it an extremely promising biomaterialincluding a toughness 50% greater than spider dragline silk and a novel fiber cross-linkingproperty upon hydration/dehydration that we have discovered in our laboratory and plan to exploitfor the design of a new class of biomaterials. Further, we believe that a better understanding ofobserved water-induced and strain-induced structural transformations should be of significantinterest to polymer engineers and materials chemists; using water as a solvent to convert malleable,flexible and tough protein-based materials into rigid cross-linked sheets may prove instrumentalto developing biomaterials tailored for ARO applications including protective clothing and otheradvanced textile needs and repairs (parachutes, tents, etc). Regardless of recent progress,significant questions remain unanswered regarding AC silks unique mechanical properties,molecular structure, higher-order architecture and assembly processes.