In an astonishing breakthrough, scientists have discovered that a combination of spider and silk from a silkworm could be the key to repairing devastating nerve injuries.
At the forefront of this discovery is Professor Alex Woods, founder of Newrotex, a clinical-stage biotech start-up from the University of Oxford.
Speaking to The Independent, he explained the complex science behind it all: “Nerves are basically like a telephone cord – a tube with lots of little wires that carry information between your brain, muscles, and skin.
“If you experience nerve damage, from something as serious as being in an accident, to just cutting an avocado – the connection between your nerves is severed.
“This can cause chronic pain, numbness, or even paralysis.”
Whilst many people may believe that nerve damage is a rare occurrence, data shows that 1 in 10 people in the UK experience some degree of nerve damage within their lifetimes.
“The current gold-standard treatment that we currently have for nerve damage is a procedure called an autograft, where a surgeon will essentially harvest a healthy nerve from another part of the patient's body to patch the injury site.
“But the problem with this is that we’re not actually creating a cure – because we have to remove a nerve from an area of the body in order to heal the initial injury, we’re simply trading the nerve damage in one area for damage in another”, said Professor Woods.
For the NHS , where approximately 300,000 peripheral nerve injuries are treated annually, autograft surgery yields a less than 50 per cent recovery rate and carries a 27 per cent complication rate.
As a result, the "off-the-shelf" silk alternative could be transformative.
By eliminating the need for a second surgical site to harvest donor nerves, the technology reduces operation times, lowers the risk of infection, and could significantly cut the long-term costs associated with rehabilitation and chronic pain management.
The innovative solution that Newrotex has proposed uses silk fibres from golden orb-web spiders to provide what Professor Woods describes as a “trellis-like structure that bridges damaged nerves, so that they can essentially grow back together”.
In preliminary tests conducted on rats, nerve cells latched onto the spider silk and migrated at a remarkable speed of over 1.1mm per day.
Crucially, the silk remains in place for several months – long enough to support nerve regeneration over gaps of up to 10cm, which human nerves simply cannot do alone.
“The thing is; spider’s silk is highly biocompatible – so two years after surgery, there’s no trace of any silk in the patient’s system.
“It massively reduces the possibility for the body to have an adverse reaction to the surgery, something which isn’t guaranteed with other surgical options,” Woods pointed out.
The process of obtaining the material however, is as delicate as the surgery itself.
Golden orb-web spiders are native to southern and east Africa, with the arachnids at Newrotex coming from Madagascar.
To harvest the silk, golden orb-web spiders are gently sedated with carbon dioxide. Their silk glands are then stimulated with a tiny brush, and the "dragline" fibres –traditionally used by spiders to descend from heights – are wound onto custom bobbins using high-precision drive systems. This ensures the silk, which is thinner than a human hair, but stronger than steel by weight, can maintain its structural integrity.
Woods emphasised: "Peripheral nerve injuries have devastating impacts on patients.
“Huge ranges of people, from athletes, to men with prostate cancers, to women who have undergone mastectomies, suffer nerve damage.
“The work being done at Newrotex is addressing a massive unmet clinical need, and creating a real solution for those who suffer the effects of nerve damage."
If future trials in the United Kingdom and America prove successful, the humble spider’s web may soon be the gold standard for helping humans walk, move, and feel again. Target dates for wider commercial availability are currently set for 2027.
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