Publications

New Advanced Functional Materials Paper

The lab has a new paper out in Advanced Functional Materials titled: "Unraveling the Molecular Origin of Prey-wrapping Spider Silk's Unique Mechanical Properties and Assembly Process Using NMR". Prey wrap spider silk exhibits high extensibility and superior toughness compared to other types of spider silk and is a promising target for biomaterials design. In this paper, the lab combines mechanical testing, solution NMR on native glands, SSNMR on spun fibers and AlphaFold structure prediction to elucidate the silk's unique liquid-to-solid transition and further correlate the silk fibers conformational structure with the silk's fantastic mechanics. These results and models are providing the fundamental basis for the design of biomimetic materials inspired by the prey wrap spider silk system. The study was led by lab post-doc, Kevin Chalek, with major contributions from David Onofrei, Julian Aldana, Hannah Johnson, and NREL scientist, Bennett Addison. For anyone interested, you can check out the paper here: Unraveling the Molecular Origin of Prey‐Wrapping Spider Silk's Unique Mechanical Properties and Assembly Process Using NMR onlinelibrary.wiley.com ...