Seminars

Silk, Bones and Spider Fangs - from Nature to Products?

by Ms Anja Glisovic

Europe/Berlin
Bldg.25c Conference room (Universe)

Bldg.25c Conference room

Universe

Description
Silk, bones and spider fangs are among nature's most intriguing material systems and represent opposite design principles. Bones exhibit a highly hierarchical structure, while spider fangs gain most of their properties from chemical modifications of their chitin matrix. Silk on the other hand is a intermediate system in which both structure and chemical composition can have significant influence. The utilization of these principles is not only a problem of understanding them but also of processing and manufacturing, product requirements, cost efficiency, legal issues and the state of the art. This will be outlined on the examples of resorbable surgical implants, disposable plastic blades and silk substrates for cell culture applications