Spider Silk, Artificial Muscle?

While scrolling through the discovery channel website, I cam across this article and it immediately jumped out at me. Scientists at the University of Akron have been researching ways to use spider silk, which is known for being lightweight and having steel fibers, for artificial muscle. One of the head scientists, Professor Todd Blackledge, said “No one ever thought about using spider silk as an artificial muscle” . I was drawn to this because it reminded me of the modern day invisionaries who were combining two different types of science, this being the anatomy of muscles and the silk from spiders. Not only did this relate to our current class discussions, it is also a major breakthrough in modern medicine because it could help replace muscle tissue in those who couldn't grow it back.
The reason that this silk can be used as artificial muscle is that the silk contracts when touched with water, just as human muscles do. The new spider-silk muscle would have degrees of movement, just as human muscle does. That movement would depend on how much water is in the air around the muscle. The type of contraction is called a cyclic contraction, and could be used in microelectromechanical systems, which are tiny devices used on very small scales, such as separating individual cells. The cyclic contraction based spider silk would open and close a tiny channel to separate individual cells.
This type of artificial muscle is better than others that are currently used because it can last a lot longer than its counter parts. Though there are current artificial muscles that are superior to spider silk in terms of speed of contraction, they only last a couple hundred cycles and need high amounts of electricity or toxic chemicals to activate.
This could impact the world in a huge way, because it would have a new artificial muscle that could help people who's muscles are deteriorating due to a disease, or any other reason. The scientists have also been researching ways to make this into a power generator, though it has been difficult to find more information on this. This could be used also in prosthetic limbs, to make the muscle more real, and maybe even one day to create a fully functioning prosthetic limb.
Finds like these interest me because if perfected, this could be such a large scientific breakthrough and could help millions of people, and the materials used would be from a natural source.



Bland, Eric. "Spider Silk Used as Artificial Muscle : Discovery News." Discovery News: Earth, Space, Tech, Animals, Dinosaurs, History. Discovery Communications LLC, 8 Nov. 2009. Web. 09 Nov. 2009. .