Research Interests
- Rheology
- Spider silk
- Spectroscopy
- Fibre Processing
Research Links
Biography and previous work
Chris joined the department at the start of 2013 and is head of the Natural Materials Group, currently holding an EPSRC Early Career Fellowship. He is also the Chair of RAPS, an organisation for Recent Appointees in Polymer Science. Previously he was at Oxford where he undertook his BA in Biological Sciences, MSc in Integrative Biosciences, D. Phil and later a Fellowship By Examination (a.k.a JRF) whilst working in the Oxford Silk Group.
Chris’ research uses tools developed for the physical sciences to better understand Nature’s materials, from latex to collagen, but with a focus on silk. By investigating unspun silk’s flow properties he has been able to gain unique insights into their biodiversity, structure and evolution. Additionally, this work has made important links between natural and industrial fibre processing which has lead to a fundamentally new way of designing, testing and fabricating bio-inspired materials.
Current work
Today he combines multiple instruments with rheology, from microscopes (confocal) and spectrometers (IR) to synchrotrons (SANS at ISIS and SAXS/WAXS at ESRF) in order to understand exactly how silk proteins arrange themselves into one of Nature’s most impressive materials.
Key Projects
SPICE: Silk Processing In Controlled Environments: investigating the flow properties of silk and its natural processing. EPSRC Early Career Fellowship
SHARD: Silk in High Rate and Research into Damage Tolerance: understanding the biology and application of silks sonic properties and response to high rate impact (with Dr. C. Siviour and Prof. F. Vollrath Oxford) Leverhulme Trust
WISS: Why is Silk Spun? Integrating bio-rheology with advanced spectroscopic techniques: project for building combinatorial tools and training a next generation user of large scale facilities (i.e. ISIS, the ESRF and Diamond) EPSRC
Publications
Analysis of the pressure requirements for silk spinning reveals a pultrusion dominated process 2017
Nature Communications volume 8, Article number: 594
The Rheology behind Stress-Induced Solidification in Native Silk Feedstocks 2016
International Journal of Molecular Sciences.

Rheological behaviour of native silk feedstocks 2015
Polymer, 67, 28-39

More than one way to spin a crystallite: multiple trajectories through liquid crystallinity to solid silk 2015
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 282, 20150259

Linking naturally and unnaturally spun silks through the forced reeling of Bombyx mori 2015
Acta Biomaterialia 11, 247-255.

Silk protein aggregation kinetics revealed by Rheo-IR 2014
Acta Biomaterialia, Volume 10, Issue 2, February 2014, Pages 776-784

Horses and cows might teach us about human knees 2014
Naturwissenschaften 101, 351-354.
Distinct structural and optical regimes in natural silk spinning 2012
Biopolymers 97, 368-373.

Direct visualization of shear dependent silk fibrillogenesis 2012
Soft Matter, 2012,8, 2590-2594

Silk and Synthetic Polymers: Reconciling 100 Degrees of Separation 2012
Adv. Mater., 24: 105-109

Comparing normal and torn rotator cuff tendons using dynamic shear analysis 2011
Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (Br) 93-B, 942-948.
A poisonous surprise under the coat of the African crested rat 2011
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 279, 675-680.
There are many more lessons still to be learned from spider silks 2011
Soft Matter 7, 9595-9600.
