A new video article in JoVE, the Journal of Visualized Experiments, demonstrates procedures to harvest and process synthetic spider silk from bacteria. The procedure presented in the video article revolutionizes the spider silk purification process by standardizing a key step known as “post-spin.” In this step, silk molecules are stretched by a mechanical actuator to increase fiber strength. These mechanical improvements produce uniform spider silk and remove human error from the spinning process. As a result, the synthetic silk is much closer to the natural fibers produced by the female black widow spider than what was previously possible, and the procedure provides a scalable ground work to utilize spider silk in material manufacturing.
