[Music]
Spyder the word of oak’s fear in the
hearts of many and yet bear with me for
a few minutes and allow me to take you
on a journey to show you that spiders
are not the creatures of our nightmares
but instead should inspire our dreams so
many of us whether you love them hate
them or are indifferent to them are
intrigued by spiders and I think Peter
Parker might have something to do with
it
so I mean this isn’t that scary what’s
so scary about a teenager getting bit by
a radioactive spider and getting
superpowers okay so maybe that’s a
little more scary than rosy here but he
did stop a train with his silk on the
movie screen and in fact that’s not far
from the truth
a one-inch thick rope of spider silk
could stop a 747 airplane that’s
freaking amazing
now I may not be trying to stop a train
we’re an airplane for that matter but in
my lab at North Dakota State University
we’re taking the power of spider silk
off the movie screen and bringing it
into reality by developing new
applications of spider silk to really
address the global grand challenges that
face us today I may not have a cool
costume and I may not use spider silk to
swing from buildings but at North Dakota
State University
I am Spider Woman I didn’t start out to
be Spider Woman of NDSU or any place for
that matter I began working with spiders
for about 15 years ago in graduate
school now I didn’t always love spiders
I had to come around to him a little bit
I mean first I started with worms as a
child
worms and then I moved on to ants those
were really cool but when I found
spiders that was it it was all over for
me I became so enamored and wrapped up
in their webs that I couldn’t wait to
get to work the next day
in fact I became so enthralled with
spiders that my kids started teasing me
and they would play a game they would
say in their five and seven year old
brains the most outlandish things they
could think of and challenge me to
relate them to spider silk now it turns
out I am really good at retaining almost
anything and everything – spider silk
there are two different types of spiders
there’s orb-weaving spiders and non or
weaving spiders or weaving spiders make
the circular webs that catch their prey
they also catch passerby sometimes these
are the webs that stick to your face and
help you channel your inner ninja when
you walk into them non orb-weaving
spiders don’t produce as many types of
silk and they don’t use they’re slow to
catch their prey
instead they line their burrows with
their silk and use it as a home security
system allowing that trigger to be hit
every time something is lurking outside
their door just in case maybe it’s lunch
not only are their soaks different but
spiders have different personalities
most people don’t believe me when I say
that but my friend Rosie here who’s
behaving herself quite well yesterday I
was doing spider Taichi um Rosie here
often gets scared in large crowds and
will cover her eyes with her legs now
Rosie is quite a nice tarantula I know
some of you may not believe me but she
is there are some tarantulas that are
far more cranky so here’s a tip for you
next time you think you’re going to pick
up a tarantula if it has a bald spot on
abdomen don’t pick it up that’s a cranky
tarantula
unlike some men who are cranky because
they’re bald tarantulas are cranky
because chances are bald because they’re
cranky Nephilim appease or as my kids
used to call them banana but spiders are
very docile and they don’t mind being
handled in fact I’m pretty sure I’m
getting close to training them to do
tricks for lab tours
unlike Rosie these spiders don’t see
very well and so they have to use their
silk to catch their prey however there
are smarter than Rosie Rosie would walk
right off my hand without a second
thought whereas these guys will at least
attach their silk to me first our guy up
you garden spiders are a little crankier
than the banana-bot spiders and they run
really really fast trust me it was not a
pleasant experience in graduate school
when one of these would escape what I
found out about myself though is that
I’m a pretty dang good spider Wrangler
auric weaving spiders have six different
kinds of silk and a special silk glue
and they use these silks to create a
balanced web that has both elasticity
and strength now each one of these silks
is sequestered in a gland in their
abdomen and it’s a specialized gland for
a specific purpose it would be like us
having saliva glands to taste sweet
salty or bitter foods now the problem
here is that we only care about one of
these soaks just the dragline silk
that’s the one that when is fall that a
spider falls from the ceiling that’s
what they’re using that’s the one we
care about but they also make flagella
form silks that are as stretchy as
rubber bands and form the elastic
capture spiral of their web so how do we
isolate a single strand well we’ll get
to that
spiders soak like our muscles is almost
entirely made of protein and each of
these proteins is made up of Lego like
building blocks
now spiders have a blue Lego that gives
them the elasticity and a yellow Lego
that gives them strength which means
that spiders were the original Lego
builders and they have mastered the art
of doing this so by distilling these
complex molecular concepts into just
pattern building with Legos anybody can
manipulate spider silk
in fact spiders are not the only Lego
builders around they’re not the only
ones that have been playing Legos
currently we’ve been able to find Legos
all around us in our environment right
now
we found a heparin binding Lego now
heparin is a molecule in your body that
prevents blood clots but the cool thing
about this Lego is it can also prevent
infections how cool is that because it
turns out that when we mix it together
with spider silk we can create a coating
for a catheter now if you get a blood
clot around a catheter you’re far more
likely to get an infection and if you
get an infection you’re a lot more
likely to get a blood clot so the
problem is that physicians treat these
as two separate things but we know that
they’re the same and they’re connected
so producing a coating that can both
resist infection and blood clots is a
significant advancement my latest
project and what I’m really excited
about is we found a green Lego that will
interact with bacteria and interacts
with mersa and hospital-acquired
infections so we mix that in with spider
silk and we created a bubble and in that
bubble we put antibiotics now that
bubble will only burst in the presence
of an infection that will help us
prevent antibiotic resistant bacteria
from developing and protect the tissues
that surround it
now both of these applications that I’ve
just talked about require a solution but
some applications may require a fiber in
order to produce a fiber with the proper
mechanical properties it requires a
balance of protein structure and
sequence and spinning unfortunately this
is what we look like right now we know a
lot about the proteins
sequence and a lot less about how to
spin the fiber so here’s what we know we
know that spiders produce their silk a
lot more like floss and scientists and
labs produce their silk a lot more like
toothpaste now I’m not there how many of
you have ever had an uncontrolled floss
meltdown in the bathroom what if you
have tried to help a two-year-old with
toothpaste
you know how messy and uncontrolled that
can be in order to learn more about
their spinning system we have to take
the fiber directly from the spider again
we’re only interested in the one so as
you might imagine
spiders are maybe not as cooperative
with this as we’d like so what we have
to do is we knock them out and then we
quickly tape them down on their back
before they can get back up we gave them
a little seat belt so that they don’t
move around and we give them some food
to distract him because as they say fat
and happy right so then we start pulling
the silk out and we pull it like floss
well at least philosophy used a drill to
pull it out now because these spiders
produce the six different kinds of silk
and we only want the one that’s a little
difficult to manipulate so we have to do
it under a microscope
each of these fibers is 1/10 to 1/100
the diameter of a single human hair
which I’m pretty sure is why I had to
start wearing glasses full time at
graduate school on a good day each
spider produces silk for one hour and
that’s one football field in length how
amazing is that
spider-man’s got nothing on these guys
unfortunately when you bundle that all
together it’s less than the size of a
pea so we have to come up with a better
way so lately we have started 3d
printing a silk spinning device that
does it a lot more like spiders do it
gone are the days of two-year-olds and
toothpaste we’re now more like teenagers
in toothpastes furthermore we’re working
to mix in a molecule or a new Lego that
will respond to the pressure
and temperature of your skin so that we
can incorporate silk into a compression
bandage just think of it you sprained
your ankle and you have to go wrap it
with a compression bandage when you’re
sitting down when you stand up it’s
either too tight or too loose then you
have to wrap it again
but what if there was a bandage made of
spider silk let’s call it the Goldilocks
silk bandage for example that when you
wrapped it responded to the proper set
of compression and gave you just the
right amount controlling the underlying
silk protein will lead to an almost
endless variety of applications in fact
you may say it’s only limited by your
imagination although my spiders may
still evoke a sense of fear in you and
you may not all rush up to hold rosy I
hope that you can now appreciate the
beauty of their silk their silk is
strengthening the way in which we
produce oh now she’s going to move
around here for you the way we produce
and manufacture new materials and we’ve
only just begun in this journey
you
Spyder the word of oak’s fear in the
hearts of many and yet bear with me for
a few minutes and allow me to take you
on a journey to show you that spiders
are not the creatures of our nightmares
but instead should inspire our dreams so
many of us whether you love them hate
them or are indifferent to them are
intrigued by spiders and I think Peter
Parker might have something to do with
it
so I mean this isn’t that scary what’s
so scary about a teenager getting bit by
a radioactive spider and getting
superpowers okay so maybe that’s a
little more scary than rosy here but he
did stop a train with his silk on the
movie screen and in fact that’s not far
from the truth
a one-inch thick rope of spider silk
could stop a 747 airplane that’s
freaking amazing
now I may not be trying to stop a train
we’re an airplane for that matter but in
my lab at North Dakota State University
we’re taking the power of spider silk
off the movie screen and bringing it
into reality by developing new
applications of spider silk to really
address the global grand challenges that
face us today I may not have a cool
costume and I may not use spider silk to
swing from buildings but at North Dakota
State University
I am Spider Woman I didn’t start out to
be Spider Woman of NDSU or any place for
that matter I began working with spiders
for about 15 years ago in graduate
school now I didn’t always love spiders
I had to come around to him a little bit
I mean first I started with worms as a
child
worms and then I moved on to ants those
were really cool but when I found
spiders that was it it was all over for
me I became so enamored and wrapped up
in their webs that I couldn’t wait to
get to work the next day
in fact I became so enthralled with
spiders that my kids started teasing me
and they would play a game they would
say in their five and seven year old
brains the most outlandish things they
could think of and challenge me to
relate them to spider silk now it turns
out I am really good at retaining almost
anything and everything – spider silk
there are two different types of spiders
there’s orb-weaving spiders and non or
weaving spiders or weaving spiders make
the circular webs that catch their prey
they also catch passerby sometimes these
are the webs that stick to your face and
help you channel your inner ninja when
you walk into them non orb-weaving
spiders don’t produce as many types of
silk and they don’t use they’re slow to
catch their prey
instead they line their burrows with
their silk and use it as a home security
system allowing that trigger to be hit
every time something is lurking outside
their door just in case maybe it’s lunch
not only are their soaks different but
spiders have different personalities
most people don’t believe me when I say
that but my friend Rosie here who’s
behaving herself quite well yesterday I
was doing spider Taichi um Rosie here
often gets scared in large crowds and
will cover her eyes with her legs now
Rosie is quite a nice tarantula I know
some of you may not believe me but she
is there are some tarantulas that are
far more cranky so here’s a tip for you
next time you think you’re going to pick
up a tarantula if it has a bald spot on
abdomen don’t pick it up that’s a cranky
tarantula
unlike some men who are cranky because
they’re bald tarantulas are cranky
because chances are bald because they’re
cranky Nephilim appease or as my kids
used to call them banana but spiders are
very docile and they don’t mind being
handled in fact I’m pretty sure I’m
getting close to training them to do
tricks for lab tours
unlike Rosie these spiders don’t see
very well and so they have to use their
silk to catch their prey however there
are smarter than Rosie Rosie would walk
right off my hand without a second
thought whereas these guys will at least
attach their silk to me first our guy up
you garden spiders are a little crankier
than the banana-bot spiders and they run
really really fast trust me it was not a
pleasant experience in graduate school
when one of these would escape what I
found out about myself though is that
I’m a pretty dang good spider Wrangler
auric weaving spiders have six different
kinds of silk and a special silk glue
and they use these silks to create a
balanced web that has both elasticity
and strength now each one of these silks
is sequestered in a gland in their
abdomen and it’s a specialized gland for
a specific purpose it would be like us
having saliva glands to taste sweet
salty or bitter foods now the problem
here is that we only care about one of
these soaks just the dragline silk
that’s the one that when is fall that a
spider falls from the ceiling that’s
what they’re using that’s the one we
care about but they also make flagella
form silks that are as stretchy as
rubber bands and form the elastic
capture spiral of their web so how do we
isolate a single strand well we’ll get
to that
spiders soak like our muscles is almost
entirely made of protein and each of
these proteins is made up of Lego like
building blocks
now spiders have a blue Lego that gives
them the elasticity and a yellow Lego
that gives them strength which means
that spiders were the original Lego
builders and they have mastered the art
of doing this so by distilling these
complex molecular concepts into just
pattern building with Legos anybody can
manipulate spider silk
in fact spiders are not the only Lego
builders around they’re not the only
ones that have been playing Legos
currently we’ve been able to find Legos
all around us in our environment right
now
we found a heparin binding Lego now
heparin is a molecule in your body that
prevents blood clots but the cool thing
about this Lego is it can also prevent
infections how cool is that because it
turns out that when we mix it together
with spider silk we can create a coating
for a catheter now if you get a blood
clot around a catheter you’re far more
likely to get an infection and if you
get an infection you’re a lot more
likely to get a blood clot so the
problem is that physicians treat these
as two separate things but we know that
they’re the same and they’re connected
so producing a coating that can both
resist infection and blood clots is a
significant advancement my latest
project and what I’m really excited
about is we found a green Lego that will
interact with bacteria and interacts
with mersa and hospital-acquired
infections so we mix that in with spider
silk and we created a bubble and in that
bubble we put antibiotics now that
bubble will only burst in the presence
of an infection that will help us
prevent antibiotic resistant bacteria
from developing and protect the tissues
that surround it
now both of these applications that I’ve
just talked about require a solution but
some applications may require a fiber in
order to produce a fiber with the proper
mechanical properties it requires a
balance of protein structure and
sequence and spinning unfortunately this
is what we look like right now we know a
lot about the proteins
sequence and a lot less about how to
spin the fiber so here’s what we know we
know that spiders produce their silk a
lot more like floss and scientists and
labs produce their silk a lot more like
toothpaste now I’m not there how many of
you have ever had an uncontrolled floss
meltdown in the bathroom what if you
have tried to help a two-year-old with
toothpaste
you know how messy and uncontrolled that
can be in order to learn more about
their spinning system we have to take
the fiber directly from the spider again
we’re only interested in the one so as
you might imagine
spiders are maybe not as cooperative
with this as we’d like so what we have
to do is we knock them out and then we
quickly tape them down on their back
before they can get back up we gave them
a little seat belt so that they don’t
move around and we give them some food
to distract him because as they say fat
and happy right so then we start pulling
the silk out and we pull it like floss
well at least philosophy used a drill to
pull it out now because these spiders
produce the six different kinds of silk
and we only want the one that’s a little
difficult to manipulate so we have to do
it under a microscope
each of these fibers is 1/10 to 1/100
the diameter of a single human hair
which I’m pretty sure is why I had to
start wearing glasses full time at
graduate school on a good day each
spider produces silk for one hour and
that’s one football field in length how
amazing is that
spider-man’s got nothing on these guys
unfortunately when you bundle that all
together it’s less than the size of a
pea so we have to come up with a better
way so lately we have started 3d
printing a silk spinning device that
does it a lot more like spiders do it
gone are the days of two-year-olds and
toothpaste we’re now more like teenagers
in toothpastes furthermore we’re working
to mix in a molecule or a new Lego that
will respond to the pressure
and temperature of your skin so that we
can incorporate silk into a compression
bandage just think of it you sprained
your ankle and you have to go wrap it
with a compression bandage when you’re
sitting down when you stand up it’s
either too tight or too loose then you
have to wrap it again
but what if there was a bandage made of
spider silk let’s call it the Goldilocks
silk bandage for example that when you
wrapped it responded to the proper set
of compression and gave you just the
right amount controlling the underlying
silk protein will lead to an almost
endless variety of applications in fact
you may say it’s only limited by your
imagination although my spiders may
still evoke a sense of fear in you and
you may not all rush up to hold rosy I
hope that you can now appreciate the
beauty of their silk their silk is
strengthening the way in which we
produce oh now she’s going to move
around here for you the way we produce
and manufacture new materials and we’ve
only just begun in this journey
you
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