Welcome

The Oxford Silk Group led by Prof. Fritz Vollrath studies the biology of silks, specifically spider silks, with the goal to fully unravel the chemistry, ecology and evolution of these fascinating materials. In addition we also study spider web engineering and behaviour.

Spiders, lepidoptera and a host of other arthropods make silk. These silks have evolved independently in the different taxa, but tend to share many features. For a start they are all bio-polymers of one type or another, with generally excellent mechanical properties. Natural silks are produced environmentally friendly by the animal with water as solvent, at ambient temperatures and low pressures. Clearly, this is something we should aim to copy when designing and making 'fibres for the future'.

Many silks are bio-compatible, making them excellent materials for use in medicine. Others are super tough, suggesting use in light-weight applications where energy has to be taken up by the material. All are disposable, consisting entirely of natural building blocks, mostly common amino acids that can easily be re-integrated into the natural cycle of decay and rebuilding.

Most important, for us, is the wealth of information hidden in silk on protein folding and on Nature's way of making exceptional polymer structures. This is immensely valuable information that can be extracted by careful research using state-of-the-art analytical tools.