Paper: Recluse Spider’s Silk Ribbons
By Hannes Schniepp
In collaboration with Fritz Vollrath from the University of Oxford, our team has revealed that fibers of recluse spider silk have highly unusual structure and properties. On the one hand, this provides a key to unraveling the secrets of the molecular structure of silk. On the other hand, this will most likely lead to novel medical and engineering applications for silks.
See our Press Release: Recluse Spider’s Thin and Strong Silk Ribbons.
Our paper has been published in the journal Advanced Materials (2015 impact factor 19.0).
Citation & Download
| H. C. Schniepp, S. R. Koebley, F. Vollrath “Brown recluse spider's nanometer scale ribbons of stiff extensible silk”, Advanced Materials 25, 7028–7032 (2013) |
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| PDF Download: | Download |
| Contact: | schniepp@wm.edu |
| DOI: | 10.1002/adma.201302740 |
| Publisher's Web Page: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/adma.201302740 |
Media Coverage of This Work
On TV and Video Interviews
| Mar 2014 | Discovery Channel Canada airs a TV feature of our brown recluse silk project in their science show Daily Planet (7:00 pm show on March 10). |  |
| Mar 2014 | William & Mary produces the 4-minute video story "In the lab: 'Milking' brown recluse spiders for silk" about our work on brown recluse spider silk. |  |
| Oct 2013 | Daily Press Video Interview: Interview with Prof. Schniepp about our research on the recluse spider silk. This is goes along with their long article, accompanied with pictures. |  |
In Print Media
| Oct 2013 | Chemical & Engineering News feature: C & E News features our paper on the recluse spider silk in their October 28 issue. |  |
| Oct 2013 | Virginia Gazette brown recluse feature: Our research on the silk of the brown recluse spider is featured with a story and photos in their October 19 issue. |  |
| Oct 2013 | The Daily Press, Hampton Roads' big newspaper, prominently features our research on the recluse spider silk with a long online article, accompanied with pictures and a video interview. In the print edition, our story had a large title page feature in the Oct 15 issue. | |
| Oct 2013 | The WIRED magazine highlights our research on the silk of the brown recluse spider with an exciting article. |  |
Our Related Publications
| [37] | JOM (2019) — Wang, Schniepp* "Nanofibrils as Building Blocks of Silk Fibers: Critical Review of the Experimental Evidence" |
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| [36] | ACS Macro Letters (2018) — Wang, Schniepp* "Strength of Recluse Spider’s Silk Originates from Nanofibrils" |
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| [32] | Materials Horizons (2017) — Koebley, Vollrath, & Schniepp* "Toughness-enhancing metastructure in the recluse spider's looped ribbon silk" |
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| [27] | Biomacromolecules (2015) — Koebley, Greving, Vollrath & Schniepp* "Silk Reconstitution Disrupts Fibroin Self-Assembly" |
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| [19] | Biomacromolecules (2012) — Greving, Cai, Vollrath & Schniepp* "Shear-Induced Self-Assembly of Native Silk Proteins into Fibrils Studied by Atomic Force Microscopy" |
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