AUTHOR=Cheng Jie , Lee Sang-Hoon TITLE=Development of New Smart Materials and Spinning Systems Inspired by Natural Silks and Their Applications JOURNAL=Frontiers in Materials VOLUME=2 YEAR=2016 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/materials/articles/10.3389/fmats.2015.00074 DOI=10.3389/fmats.2015.00074 ISSN=2296-8016 ABSTRACT=

Silks produced by spiders and silkworms are charming natural biological materials with highly optimized hierarchical structures and outstanding physicomechanical properties. The superior performance of silks relies on the integration of a unique protein sequence, a distinctive spinning process, and complex hierarchical structures. Silks have been prepared to form a variety of morphologies and are widely used in diverse applications, for example, in the textile industry, as drug delivery vehicles, and as tissue engineering scaffolds. This review presents an overview of the organization of natural silks, in which chemical and physical functions are optimized, as well as a range of new materials inspired by the desire to mimic natural silk structure and synthesis.