From Natural Silks to New Polymer Fibres

Abstract

The future of silk as an engineering fibre is considered, taking into account the significant shortcomings of this material as well as its much-publicised attractions. Attention is focused on issues that remain unsolved or unresolved — either reflecting the difficulty of characterising the complex hierarchical structure in silk solutions and fibres, or arising from the poor reproducibility of silk tensile property measurements. Advantages and attendant practical limitations of harnessing biotechnology to synthesise silk and silk-like proteins in transgenic hosts are addressed.