All spiders produce protein-based biopolymer fibres that we call silk. The most studied of
these silks is spider dragline silk, which is very tough and relatively abundant compared with …

Mechanical properties of biomaterials play an important role in their biological performance.
Among the most important parameters in designing of biomaterials, their structure and …

Current synthetic elastomers suffer from the well‐known trade‐off between toughness and
stiffness. By a combination of multiscale experiments and atomistic simulations, a …

In quantum mechanochemistry, quantum chemical methods are used to describe molecules
under the influence of an external force. The calculation of geometries, energies, transition …

The past 15 years have seen a major increase in our understanding of the structure and
dynamics of Bombyx mori silk fibroin, largely as a result of NMR studies. We now have a …

Silk fibroin, a natural multi-domain protein, has attracted great attention due to its superior
mechanical properties such as ultra-high strength and stretchability, biocompatibility, as well …

Natural selection and evolution develop a huge amount of biological materials in different
environments (eg lotus in water and opuntia in desert). These biological materials possess …

Materials science and genetic engineering have joined forces over the last three decades in
the development of so-called protein-based polymers. These are proteins, typically with …

A Hierarchical Network (HN) model of soft matter was put forward to explain the mechanical
properties of animal silk fibers. At the nano-micro level, the silk fibers consist of a bundle of …

Recently, considerable attention has been paid to silks by a range of scientists from textile
engineers to polymer chemists and biomedical researchers. The application of native silk …