In the comics, Spiderman’s web can stop a school bus full of kids from careening off a bridge or sling the masked vigilante between buildings high above the ground. While fictional, a backbone of science exists behind Spidey’s webs.
“Popular culture meets science and engineering,” said Xuan Mu, University of Iowa assistant professor of biomedical engineering. “The possibilities of what we can do with a spider’s web are not just science fiction or a cartoon. It is ambitious but largely based on the depth of our understanding of how a tiny creature processes protein solutions into super-strong materials.”
A spider’s web comes from natural silks that are nearly identical to the materials integral to Mu’s research. Instead of trying to trip up bad guys, Mu is using the natural material to improve medicine.
Upon arriving at Iowa in 2022, Mu set up his laboratory on the first floor of the Seamans Center. The lab has a generous supply of tightly spun pellets of silk harvested from silkworms via the circular sericulture industry, in which silkworms are raised for the production of raw silk.
The pellets are liquified into a solution for use in experiments and biofabrication.
Mu and his team are studying the molecular mechanisms of silk proteins to manipulate the macroscopic properties and devise innovative fabrication approaches with monolithic silk feedstocks.
Put another way, Mu is trying to mimic the natural silk spinning process that yields incredibly strong, flexible material.
The silk materials, due to their superior compatibility with the human body, are valuable and unique feedstocks for fabricating tissue patches, drug delivery systems, clinical implants, and other biomedical devices.
Silks also offer environmental benefits.
“Silks are made entirely of protein, so they are biodegradable, compostable, and edible,” Mu said. “If we can use silks instead of plastics, we can eliminate so much waste and preserve energy and resources on our planet.”
Mu added that, despite substantial progress in past decades, there is still a lot we can learn from the silk spinning found in spiders and silkworms. “The potential benefits of silk-spinning-inspired biofabrication are endless, even beyond medicine.”