Anna Rising, Karolinska Institute, Sweden

Host: Professor MD Dong

Spinning biomimetic spider silk 

 Over the past 400 million years, spiders have evolved the ability to spin some of the toughest fibers known, using a fully aqueous process that operates under ambient temperatures. As a result, spider silk has emerged as an attractive biomaterial for a wide range of applications, including medical implants, and as a sustainable alternative to environmentally harmful synthetic fibers. However, the large-scale production of spider silk proteins (spidroins) has been challenging due to their highly repetitive sequences and strong tendency to aggregate.

We have developed an Escherichia coli–based production platform that yields unprecedented amounts of correctly folded, water-soluble spidroins. By combining this expression system with a biomimetic spinning process and a targeted protein engineering strategy, we generated artificial spider silk fibers that match the toughness of native spider silk. These fibers successfully guided neurite extension in cell culture assays, can optionally be equipped with bioactive properties, and their potential utility in textile applications is currently under investigation.

Biography:

Anna Rising is Professor of Veterinary Medical Biochemistry and Wallenberg Scholar at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), and a Group Leader at Karolinska Institutet. Her research focuses on understanding how spiders produce their exceptionally strong silk and translating these principles into sustainable, high-performance biomimetic materials. Her group develops recombinant spider silk proteins and explores their applications in advanced materials and biomedicine. Rising is an internationally recognized leader in artificial spider silk research and has received several major distinctions, including an ERC Consolidator Grant, appointment as a Wallenberg Scholar, and winner of the Global Change Award from H&M Foundation.