Speaker: Professor Sara Goodacre

Title: Smarter than a spider: nature inspired biomaterials and pest-control

Abstract: The natural world provides the blueprint for materials that can be useful in fields of medicine and engineering. In this lecture I will explore how different spider silks can be made synthetically in the laboratory, and how these can be further improved for human use by the addition of useful chemical properties, such as antibiotic activity. I will also explore how the natural ability of spiders to act as predators of pests in settings such as agricultural fields can be harnessed as an a natural alternative to the use of pesticides.

Further reading:

https://bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1741-7007-7-32

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/adma.201604245

https://thebiologist.rsb.org.uk/biologist/158-biologist/features/2390-gone-with-the-wind