Designing Spider Silk Genes for Materials Applications

Abstract

This project is designed to create new proteins based on naturally occurring spider silk proteins with the goal of controlling elasticity and tensile strength in fibers spun from the proteins. The new genes have been constructed in year 1, the proteins have been expressed and purified in this, year 2, and characterized to insure they are correct. We have now spun fibers from the produced silk proteins and started preliminary mechanical testing. The spinning process will need to be optimized but fibers have been produced with diameters as small as 8 mirometers and tensile strengths within 25% of the natural dragline silk fibers.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 14, 2006
Accession Number
ADA456786

Entities

People

  • Randolph V Lewis

Organizations

  • University of Wyoming

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Alcohols
  • Amino Acids
  • Chemistry
  • Department Of Defense
  • Diameters
  • Elastic Properties
  • Fibers
  • Films
  • Materials
  • Materials Science
  • Mechanical Properties
  • Natural Fibers
  • Students
  • Tensile Strength
  • Thin Films
  • Universities

Readers

  • Metallurgy
  • Molecular Genetics
  • Nanocomposite Materials Science