Spider silk biology for biomedical applications - Anna Rising
Our research is mainly focused on using spider silk technology for various medical applications.

We use spider silk technology for medical applications. One line of our research concerns making artificial spider silk fibers for use in regenerative medicine, mainly cultivation of stem cells. The fibers we make are strong as tendons, are biocompatible and degrade as new tissue is formed.
Another line of research concerns the use of a spider silk protein domain for efficient production of proteins and peptides, in particular for the generation of novel lung surfactant preparations.
Our lab is located at Karolinska Institutet and at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU).
The videos below are from Andersson, Jia et al., Nat Chem Biol. 2017:
Some of our research problems
- Will we be able to mimic the mechanical properties in natural spider silk fibers, in artificially made spider silk fibers?
- Will we be able to replace damaged tissues and organs by using artificially produced spider silk as implants?
- Will we be able to produce valuable and aggregation prone proteins with low solubility by using Nature's own solubility increasing domain (NT)?
- Will we be able to make surfactant preparations that are more resistant to inhibition and can we use Lung surfactant as a drug delivery vehicle?
Group members
Anna Rising
Group leader and ResearcherOlga Shilkova
Senior lab managerTina Arndt
PhD studentSameer Hassan
Postdoctoral researcherNina Schiller
Postdoctoral researcherFredrik Bäcklund
Postdoctoral researcherBenjamin Schmuck
Postdoctoral researcherMagnus Hansson
Postdoctoral researcherJuanita Francis
Research assistantUrmimala Chatterjee
Research assistantPart of the group that works at SLU:
Sumalata Sonavane, PhD student
Marlene Andersson, Researcher
Relevant links
Nobel calling med Anna Rising
Nobel calling med Anna Rising
Nobel Calling med Anna Rising (in Swedish)
Medicinvetarna #57
Medicinvetarna #57
(In Swedish)
Spindeltråd är ett av de lättaste och hållbaraste materialen som finns. Forskaren Anna Rising vid Karolinska Institutet och Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet försöker framställa syntetiska spindeltrådsfibrer som hon hoppas kan användas vid bland annat reparation av skadade nerver.
Selected publications
High-yield Production of Amyloid-β Peptide Enabled by a Customized Spider Silk Domain.
Abelein A, Chen G, Kitoka K, Aleksis R, Oleskovs F, Sarr M, et al
Sci Rep 2020 01;10(1):235
Structure-Function Relationship of Artificial Spider Silk Fibers Produced by Straining Flow Spinning.
Gonska N, López PA, Lozano-Picazo P, Thorpe M, Guinea GV, Johansson J, Barth A, Pérez-Rigueiro J, Rising A
Biomacromolecules 2020 06;21(6):2116-2124
Synthetic surfactant with a recombinant surfactant protein C analogue improves lung function and attenuates inflammation in a model of acute respiratory distress syndrome in adult rabbits.
Zebialowicz Ahlström J, Massaro F, Mikolka P, Feinstein R, Perchiazzi G, Basabe-Burgos O, et al
Respir Res 2019 Nov;20(1):245
Efficient protein production inspired by how spiders make silk.
Kronqvist N, Sarr M, Lindqvist A, Nordling K, Otikovs M, Venturi L, et al
Nat Commun 2017 05;8():15504
Degree of Biomimicry of Artificial Spider Silk Spinning Assessed by NMR Spectroscopy.
Otikovs M, Andersson M, Jia Q, Nordling K, Meng Q, Andreas LB, et al
Angew Chem Int Ed Engl 2017 10;56(41):12571-12575
Biomimetic spinning of artificial spider silk from a chimeric minispidroin.
Andersson M, Jia Q, Abella A, Lee XY, Landreh M, Purhonen P, et al
Nat Chem Biol 2017 03;13(3):262-264
Toward spinning artificial spider silk.
Rising A, Johansson J
Nat Chem Biol 2015 May;11(5):309-15
Spider silk for xeno-free long-term self-renewal and differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells.
Wu S, Johansson J, Damdimopoulou P, Shahsavani M, Falk A, Hovatta O, et al
Biomaterials 2014 Oct;35(30):8496-502
Carbonic anhydrase generates CO2 and H+ that drive spider silk formation via opposite effects on the terminal domains.
Andersson M, Chen G, Otikovs M, Landreh M, Nordling K, Kronqvist N, et al
PLoS Biol 2014 Aug;12(8):e1001921
Controlled assembly: a prerequisite for the use of recombinant spider silk in regenerative medicine?
Rising A
Acta Biomater 2014 Apr;10(4):1627-31
Recombinant spider silk matrices for neural stem cell cultures.
Lewicka M, Hermanson O, Rising AU
Biomaterials 2012 Nov;33(31):7712-7