Nanospectroscopy and nanomechanics of protein materials

工业上使用的大多数聚合物、橡胶和塑料都来自石油化学。为了减少我们对石油和天然气的依赖，有必要从其他来源生产具有类似性能的材料。在这方面，大自然为我们提供了一系列由多肽（蛋白质）构成的有趣材料，如蜘蛛丝、羊毛和蹄。它们都具有出色的机械性能，有时是相应的人造产品所无法比拟的（蜘蛛丝比凯夫拉纤维更能减震）。

Most of the polymers, rubbers and plastics that are used by industry come from petrochemistry. In order to reduce our dependency to oil and gas, it is necessary to produce, from other sources, materials with similar performances. In this respect, Nature has provided us with a wide range of interesting materials built from polypeptides (proteins), like spider-silk, wool and hoof. They all have outstanding mechanical properties that are sometime unmatched by the corresponding man-made products (spider-silk is a better shock absorber than Kevlar).