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Big plans
Curious -- does anyone else have big plans for once this thing pops significantly?
I.e. starting your own business, moving, retiring, etc?
My big plans can't start soon enough.
If another company with an inferior, more expensive product can garner attention for sports apparel, then I am excited to see what will happen to the company with a far superior, far less expensive product can do, ... especially knowing Kraig is aimed at several markets: mundane silk, cosmetic items, home furnishings, sports apparel, protective material, structural composites, medical products, etc.
They can't accurately compare the value of these two companies since our product is so much more disruptive, but if a lesser company can get such positive feedback, it seems only a matter of time before Kraig gets a ton more.
It's really cool for Spiber if they get into the sports market, but I think KBLB is going to be affecting the military markets, which I think has far deeper pockets.
It was mentioned by someone that we can't get institutional investors, but I believe we've had several institutional investors for several years already.
Best wishes to all.
Goldwin to Invest $30 Million in Spiber
http://www.sportsonesource.com/news/article_home.asp?Prod=1§ion=8&id=57601
Goldwin to Invest $30 Million in Spiber
SportsOneSource Media Posted: 9/21/2015
Goldwin Inc. has agreed to invest nearly $30 million in Spiber Inc. to commercialized its synthetic spider silks for a high-performance next-generation material.
Under the agreement the two Japanese companies will form an exclusive operational partnership in the field of sports apparel and will jointly develop next-generation sports clothing. Goldwin has agreed to invest ¥3 billion, or nearly $30 million, to purchase 1.88 million shares, or about 12 percent of privately held Spiber to facilitate the development and commercialization of such products.
Resilient and highly elastic, this synthetic spider-web-like material, "Qmonos" (from Japanese "kumo-no-su," meaning "spider web"), differs from petroleum-based fibers like polyester or nylon in that it is made from biomass, which does not depend on depleting fossil resources.
A state-of-the art microbial fermentation process is used to produce a protein called fibroin that is spun into the QMONOS fiber using a special spinning technology. This highly functional, environmentally friendly and sustainable next-generation material has attracted much attention with its great potential for commercial applications. In fact, Japanese Government Cabinet Office designated Spiber Inc. as a core research organization in a project known as "Super High-Function Structural Protein to Transform the Basic Materials Industry" under its ImPACT (Impulsing Paradigm Change through Disruptive Technologies) program.
The two companies say the next-generation material is a breakthrough technology, which can enable a new sustainable business model that does not depend on oil. Such change will help solve the environmental problems the world faces today. Through this business partnership and investment, Goldwin is committed to work together with Spiber Inc. to establish a foundation for long-term growth in the sports apparel business.
Per Facebook:
Kraig Labs named Finalists for three 2015 ITMA Future Material Awards including; Most Innovative Small Company, Protective Textiles, and Sustainable Textile - Process. Awards scheduled to be announced November 16th.
I do keep finding things to share that I find interesting ... If it seems unhelpful or irrelevant please let me know, I can post less often.
I don't want to send anyone down rabbit trails or waste anyone's time.
I am a bit obsessed with searching online for anything related, but sometimes I do cast a very wide net.
Technical Readiness Levels, per Warwick Mills
http://www.warwickmills.com/Engineering/Technical-Readiness-Level.aspx
Technical Readiness Level 1
Basic Principles Observed and Reported
Description
Lowest level of technology readiness. Scientific research begins to be translated into applied research and development. Examples might include paper studies of a technology's basic properties.
Technical Readiness Level 2
Technology Concept and Application Formulated
Description
Invention begins. Once basic principles are observed, practical applications can be invented. Applications are speculative, and there may be no proof or detailed analysis to support the assumptions. Examples are limited to analytical studies.
Technical Readiness Level 3
Analytical and Experimental Critical Function and Proof of Concept
Description
Active research and development is initiated. This includes analytical studies and laboratory studies to physically validate the analytical predictions of separate elements of the technology. Examples include components that are not yet integrated or representative.
Technical Readiness Level 4
Component and Testing Validation in a Laboratory Environment
Description
Basic technological components are integrated to establish whether they will work well together. This is relatively low-fidelity compared with the eventual system. Example includes integration of ad hoc hardware in the laboratory.
Technical Readiness Level 5
Component and Testing Validation in a Relevant Environment
Description
Fidelity of initial technology increases significantly. The basic technological components are integrated with reasonably realistic supporting elements so they can be tested in a simulated environment. Example includes high-fidelity laboratory integration of components.
Technical Readiness Level 6
System Prototypes are Demonstrated in a Relevant Environment
Description
Representative model or prototype system, which is well beyond that of TRL 5, is tested in a relevant environment. This level represents a major step up in the technology's demonstrated readiness. Examples include testing a prototype in a high fidelity laboratory environment or simulated operational environment.
Technical Readiness Level 7
System Prototype Demonstration in an Operational Environment
Description
Prototype near or at planned operational system. This level represents a major step up from TRL 6 by requiring demonstration of actual system prototype in an operational environment (e.g, in an aircraft, vehicle, or in space).
Technical Readiness Level 8
System Completed and Qualified Through Test and Demonstration
Description
Technology has been proven to work in its final form and under expected conditions. In almost all cases, this TRL represents the end of true system development. Examples includes developmental test and evaluation of the system while integrated with all end-use components to ensure design compatibility.
Technical Readiness Level 9
Completed System Proven Through Successful Mission Operations
Description
Actual application of the technology in its final form and under mission conditions, such as those encountered in operational test and evaluation (OT&E).
Summary of spider silk competitors
[NOT newsworthy, just an interesting article. This is an OLDER article but gives most of the competitors we've talked about for a while.]
http://www.protechwood.com/protechwood-the-pursuit-and-development-of-spider-silk/
Historically, the concept of a cloth created from spider silk that is strong sufficient to face up to intense forces this kind of as remaining hit by bullets, but smooth and at ease sufficient to be worn as typical, day-to-day dresses has been a desire for generations, but couple have been in a position to deliver it until eventually quite recently.
In the early 1700’s, the initially recorded use of spider silk was by Francois-Xavier Bon de Saint Hilaire, a Frenchman who was efficiently in a position to harvest sufficient silk right from spiders to deliver gloves, socks, and even a comprehensive accommodate for his king, Louis XIV. It was mentioned that he would go out and collect hundreds of spiders at a time and retail store them in crates only to return and uncover only a couple left thanks to the simple fact that spiders have a inclination to try to eat each and every other when put in close proximity.
A small about a person hundred decades afterwards, a Spaniard operating in Italy named Raimondo de Termeyer was in a position to deliver a pair of stockings and a scarf for Emperor Napoleon and his then wife Empress Josephine. He was in a position to do this by making use of a device that he invented that would immobilize the spider and take away the silk without harming the spider.
In the late 1800’s, a French Jesuit missionary named Jacob Paul Camboué who lived in Madagascar began experimenting with extracting silk from spiders. He afterwards teamed up with a further Frenchman who went by Mr. Nogué and, influenced by Termeyer’s style and design, established a hand powered device capable of extracting silk from up to 24 spiders simultaneously and combining it into a person constant strand. Applying this device, the crew was in a position to make a set of mattress hangings which was on exhibit at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris.
Extra recently in 2004, making use of the style and design documented by Camboué and Nogué, Simon Peers and Nicholas Godley tried to recreate the device and make their very own spider silk cloth. Every single early morning they gathered new spiders, “milked” them for their silk, and returned them to the wild when they have been completed with them. The complete method was particularly gradual and the sum of silk that could be obtained from each and every spider was quite negligible mainly because it will take all over 23,000 spiders to deliver only a person gram of silk. So, about the training course of 5 decades, making use of about a person million spiders, and expending 50 percent a million bucks, they had eventually manufactured sufficient silk to weave a solitary golden cape adorned with intricately embroidered and appliquéd motifs that depict the spiders that have been made use of to deliver the material. This cape is mentioned to be extremely strong, nonetheless as smooth as cashmere.
Milking spiders for their silk can also be made use of for needs other than textiles. An previous wound cure that was made use of as far back again as the Roman Empire provided collecting spider silk and applying right to a wound to support the healing method. Borrowing from this, the Department of Plastic, Hand, and Reconstructive Medical procedures in the Clinical Faculty Hannover in Germany has designed a way to make the most of a woven mesh of the dragline silk extracted right from Nephila spp spiders to make an “artificial skin” that may perhaps be utilized to the skin to repair it without any immune system response. They did this by inserting typical skin cells on to a spider silk mesh and, in the ideal ailments, have been in a position to make the outer and inner layer of skins in only a week’s time. This could be made use of as a purely natural option to plastic medical procedures to regrow skin on melt away and trauma sufferers.
Regretably, thanks to the big quantity of spiders that is necessary to deliver just a modest sum of silk and spiders’ cannibalistic mother nature, it is impractical to harvest silk right from them. Realizing this, there have been and are at the moment a lot of firms and organizations attempting to get all over this by racing to acquire and commercialize fibers that have qualities identical to that of purely natural spider silk.
In 1993, a corporation called Nexia Biotechnologies Inc. was established in Montreal, Canada by Dr. Jeffrey Turner and Paul Ballard. At first operating and failing to deliver lactose-free of charge milk, it uncovered new direction when Dr. Jeff Turner prompt that they do the job to integrate spider DNA into the milk to deliver spider silk proteins. By licensing research completed by a person of the world’s top rated researchers on spider silk, Dr. Randy Lewis, they isolated and cloned the proteins for spider silk and have been eventually in a position to deliver ten grams of spider silk proteins in goat milk in 2002. At comprehensive capability, they have been creating modest quantities of the proteins with each and every batch of milk harvested and spinning some of them into a fiber that they named “Biosteel&trade”. Regretably, with the particularly restricted sum of proteins that could be established in addition to the higher price tag to deliver these proteins, they uncovered that the business enterprise was unsustainable. They ended up selling most of their property in 2005 and eventually went bankrupt in 2009.
Dr. Randy Lewis was not giving up and was established to take this concept more. He took the concept of the “spider goats” and ran with it in parallel with Nexia Biotechnologies, creating his very own breeds though operating out of the College of Wyoming. He was also in talks with Dr. Don Jarvis, a mentioned molecular biology professor that specialized in silkworms at the College of Wyoming, to by some means integrate the spider DNA into the silkworms in a identical method as the goats.
In the meantime, Kim Thompson, a business enterprise law firm with a strong desire in the method of creating artificial spider silk, had contacted the College of Notre Dame’s Dr. Malcolm Fraser. Dr. Fraser was a person of the initial experts that had worked on creating the initially transgenic silkworms as perfectly as a person of the researchers who was in a position to acquire a process to swap the DNA in a specific component of an insect with a further exclusive sequence. He called this process “piggyBac”. Thompson was really fascinated in making use of this process to swap the DNA in the silkworm’s spinnerets with spider DNA. Jointly, Thompson and Fraser contacted Lewis and Jarvis and made a decision to do the job collectively to make this artificial spider silk.
In 2006, Thompson established Kraig Biocraft Laboratories Inc. and began operating to make transgenic silkworms that have been injected with spider DNA. In 2010, they eventually attained their objective and established a silkworm capable of spinning a a lot much better silk, which the corporation dubbed “Monster Silk®”. They printed their procedures and conclusions in a PNAS paper and begun ramping up the generation of silkworms to business quantities. Since then they have also certified a further process for much more specific gene insertion called “Zinc finger” from Sigma-Aldrich. Applying this process, they have been in a position to deliver an even much better fiber which they dubbed “Big Crimson”. A short while ago, they have been operating with Warwick Mills, a complex textile corporation primarily based in New Hampshire, to exam and acquire their fibers into sensible apps. They are also in talks with the Vietnamese governing administration to establish a business factory pending Vietnamese laws. They have stated that they hope to be at business generation stages of Monster Silk® as early as this calendar year.
Dr. Randy Lewis has given that moved on with his do the job, making an attempt to more acquire the generation of artificial spider silk. Bringing his “spider goats” with him, he transferred to Utah State College and commenced diversifying his do the job, injecting spider DNA into a lot of organisms this kind of as alfalfa vegetation, E. coli micro organism, and silkworms making use of even much more recently designed procedures for replacing DNA this kind of as the CRISPR/Cas9 system. In 2012, he established his very own corporation, Araknitek Inc., and is established to deliver his very own variation of artificial spider silks to the industry.
Other firms have seen the chance that these fibers can supply and have commenced advancement making use of their very own procedures.
In England, Oxford University’s silk research group direct by Professor Fritz Vollrath with Dr. David Knight established a corporation named Spindox Ltd. Instead than inject spider DNA into silkworms, they had designed a process to spin silkworm silk proteins into a much better silk fiber that resembled the qualities of purely natural spider silk by cleansing and modifying the fibers. They named this fiber “Spidrex®”, improved their title to Oxford Biomaterials Ltd., and are at the moment operating on creating vascular grafts that are much more reliable than all those on the industry currently. They have also manufactured a few spinoff firms making use of and creating Spidrex® fibers: Suturox Ltd., Neurotex Ltd., and Orthox Ltd.
Suturox was established in 2007 and hoped to acquire normally biodegradable sutures created type Spidrex®, but have been unable to do so and have been dissolved in 2013. Neurotex, established in 2006, hopes to commercialize a Spidrex® nerve conduit and is at the moment operating to prefect it. Orthox, established in 2008, takes advantage of Spidrex® fibers to acquire a cartilage substitute that they dubbed “FibroFix&trade”.
A German startup corporation called Spin’tec Engineering GmbH. Established by Dr. Michael Rheinnecker in 2004, acquired the spinning technology from Oxford Biomaterials Inc. and has given that enhanced upon it. They are at the moment operating with their very own breeds of silkworms and have been embedding organic agents into the silks from the silkworms though even now spinning them in this kind of a way that will deliver a thread with qualities approaching a spider’s thread. They hope to use these threads to support with bone healing, wound healing, and creating artificial tissues and organs as perfectly as other medical and pharmaceutical takes advantage of. They are at the moment operating with the KLS Martin Group to acquire an innovative maxillofacial products.
An additional German corporation has been creating an artificial spider silk making use of a various process. AMSilk GmbH is making use of E. coli micro organism that have been genetically modified with spider DNA to deliver spider silk proteins. They have currently efficiently commercialized creams and powders for beauty use that they named “TruSilk©” and are at the moment operating on creating a coating for breast and other silicone implants which they get in touch with “Bioshield-S1©” to minimize the possibility of the overall body rejecting the implant. They also are close to commercializing an about the counter wound treatment patch that they get in touch with “SanaSilk®” that will retain the wound clear and hydrated. They have even been productive spinning fibers from the proteins. They named these fibers “Biosteel®” after Nexia Biotechnologies deserted the trademark. They are at the moment operating to enhance these fibers and deliver them to industry.
AMSilk is not the only corporation making use of modified micro organism to deliver its silk. Spiber Technologies AB was established in 2008 in Sweden primarily based on the research from the veterinary school at the Swedish College of Agricultural Sciences. The founding researchers uncovered a process to deliver artificial spider silk in physiological ailments and have given that designed a recombinant spider silk protein that they get in touch with “Spiber&trade”. These proteins are quite multipurpose as they can be spun into a fiber, created into a skinny film, frothed into foam, or slash into a mesh for tailor made takes advantage of. Spiber&trade can also be bioactivated with extra features to much better accommodate final apps. The corporation is at the moment operating on perfecting the use of their Spiber&trade proteins for wound healing, implants, and other medical apps.
An additional corporation with just about the exact same title, Spiber Inc., was established in Japan in 2007. The option for their title was coincidentally the exact same as the Swedish corporation and they also use modified micro organism to make their silk proteins, but they are not operating collectively. Since their development, they have commenced operating with Kojima Industries Company and the Korea State-of-the-art Institute of Science and Technologies (KAIST) and have been in a position to establish a modest pilot facility capable of creating 100Kg of silk protein a thirty day period. They have spun some of this protein into a fiber that they have called “QMONOS®” (pronounced “kumo no su” which means “spider internet” in Japanese) and have woven a costume from it. They have recently commenced constructing an even bigger facility capable of creating 20 metric tons of silk protein a calendar year at comprehensive capability and established a spinoff corporation called Xpiber, Inc. They strategy on selling the proteins and fibers for sensible apps by the calendar year 2017.
An American corporation established in 2007 in North Carolina by Dr. David Brigham named EntoGenetics Inc. is also making an attempt to make their very own transgenic silkworms. It is Brigham’s objective to deliver 100% spider silk from a silkworm and deliver all the things to make the silk in the United states. At first operating out of his dwelling and recently escalating mulberry on marginal land at a repurposed water therapy plant, he has established a quite strong silk and has a agreement with the Army to deliver bulletproof vests. He is at the moment in the method of expanding functions.
Even a further American corporation established in 2009 in California by UCSF graduate Dr. Dan Widmaier and his husband or wife, UC Berkeley graduate Dr. David Breslauer, goes by the title of Bolt Threads Inc. They have recently improved their title from Refactored Elements Inc. and are also making an attempt to deliver an artificial spider silk. Their initial experiments have been operating with making use of transgenic salmonella to deliver the silk proteins and have given that moved on to other procedures. Since their founding, they have been granted about $1 million by the Nationwide Science Foundation and a agreement with the Department of Protection to deliver bulletproof vests. They hope to start off selling their silk commercially by 2016.
The Okamoto Company, a Japanese luxurious sock corporation, introduced in 2007 that they are operating on a new sock created from spider silk as created from genetically altered silkworms. They are at the moment operating with Shinshu University’s College of Textile Science and Technologies to commercialize these socks and have currently manufactured a prototype pair of socks. They are at the moment operating on creating a silkworm research and breeding middle that should be up and managing by spring this calendar year.
Like Nexia Biotechnologies, some other, much better recognized firms that have also jumped on the artificial spider silk bandwagon haven’t completed so perfectly In 2001, DuPont, the producer of Kevlar, had experimented with injecting spider DNA into vegetation, silkworms, and E. coli micro organism to deliver fibers with the power of spider silk, but gave up on the task after only a couple decades mainly because they could not achieve the mechanical qualities that they required in a constant method.
Artificial spider silk is of good desire and is at the moment remaining researched at a lot of universities. Practically each individual corporation stated was spun out of a university and there are a lot of much more in the method of creating spider silk that may perhaps type a corporation and try to commercialize in the long run. For case in point, the Nationwide Institute of Agrobiological Sciences (NIAS) in Japan has manufactured their very own transgenic silkworm and has recently made use of its silk to knit a sweater and scarf and documented all the things in a PLOS A person write-up. They have even recently frequented the Indian Andhra Pradesh State Sericulture Investigation and Development Institute (APSSRDI) and seemed at their transgenic silkworm systems. They are now searching into expanding generation there.
The Wyss Institute for Biologically Influenced Engineering has established genetically modified shrimp injected with spider DNA to harvest their cartilage that they named “Shrilk” in buy to make an environmentally pleasant, biodegradable plastic.
The Southwest College in Chongqing, China, Tufts College in Medford, MA, United states, the College of the Pacific in Stockton, CA, United states, and most likely a lot of others have all been operating individually on creating their very own variation of spider silk.
Modifying organisms with spider DNA has turn out to be so common that a crew of learners from the College of Bordeaux in France even made a decision to modify E. coli micro organism with spider DNA on their own for entry into the 2014 Intercontinental Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) levels of competition in which they gained a bronze medal. They have named this micro organism “Elasicoli” thanks to its elastic mother nature, and introduced it as a feasible eco-friendly option creating to plastics, option to medical sutures and substitute tendons, and process to make much better textiles.
Even with so a lot of firms and organizations simultaneously racing to deliver these products, there will even now be lots of room for other rivals to prosper in the industry as these fibers start off to overtake and swap the present-day leaders in the marketplace. It is only a matter of time right before we will start off seeing these spider silk products obtainable in retailers and hospitals worldwide.
Resources:
“François Xavier Bon De Saint Hilaire.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 26 Oct. 2014. Internet. five Nov. 2014.
Ward, Rebecca. “Golden Spider Silk.” Victoria and Albert Museum. twenty five Jan. 2012. Internet. five Nov. 2014.
Joyce, Christopher. “Spider Wranglers Weave A person-Of-A-Form Tapestry.” NPR. 27 Sept. 2009. Internet. five Nov. 2014.
Wendt H, Hillmer A, Reimers K, Kuhbier JW, Schäfer-Nolte F, et al. (2011) Artificial Skin – Culturing of Distinct Skin Cell Strains for Generating an Artificial Skin Substitute on Cross-Weaved Spider Silk Fibres. PLoS A person six(seven): e21833. doi:ten.1371/journal.pone.0021833
“Nexia Biotechnologies.” McGill Unversity. thirty Oct. 2002. Internet. five Nov. 2014.
Pelzer, Jeremy. “College of Wyoming Professor Assists Develop ‘monster’ Silk.” Casper Star-Tribune On the internet. 1 Feb. 2012. Internet. five Nov. 2014.
Noel, Joseph. “Kraig Biocraft Laboratories, Inc.” Rising Advancement Investigation, 26 Jan. 2009. Internet. five Nov. 2014.
F. Teule, Y.-G. Miao, B.-H. Sohn, Y.-S. Kim, J. J. Hull, M. J. Fraser, R. V. Lewis, D. L. Jarvis. Silkworms reworked with chimeric silkworm/spider silk genes spin composite silk fibers with enhanced mechanical qualities. Proceedings of the Nationwide Academy of Sciences, 2012 DOI: ten.1073/pnas.1109420109
“A System of Spinning Spider-like Silk, the ‘Holy Grail’ of Bio Elements.” Oxford College. Inside of: Technologies, Problem eight, The Technologies Partnership Plc., 20 July 2012. Internet. five Nov. 2014.
Kuwana Y, Sezutsu H, Nakajima K-I, Tamada Y, Kojima K (2014) Superior-Toughness Silk Created by a Transgenic Silkworm Expressing Spider (Araneus ventricosus) Dragline Silk Protein. PLoS A person 9(eight): e105325. doi:ten.1371/journal.pone.0105325
“Staff:Bordeaux.” Internet. five Nov. 2014.
Fujisaki, Masahiko. “Undertaking below Way in Kyoto to Commercialize Spider-silkworm Thread – AJW by The Asahi Shimbun.” AJW by The Asahi Shimbun RSS. N.p., 27 Nov. 2014. Internet. 03 Dec. 2014.
UCLA iGEM 2015 - Spider Silk project
Genetically programming silk with synthetic biology
"Coats PLC" working on creating spider silk
[scroll to the bottom, in bold ...]
http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/interview/2425290/coats-plc-cio-richard-cammish-explains-his-growing-frustration-with-legacy-vendors-ibm-and-sap
By Sooraj Shah
10 Sep 2015
Coats plc CIO Richard Cammish explains his growing frustration with 'legacy vendors' IBM and SAP
Anything that you're currently wearing with a stitch in it - be it footwear, upholstery or otherwise - is likely to have used Coats plc's thread.
The company may not be a household name, but it is the world's largest thread manufacturer, making an operating profit of $131m in 2014, and counting the likes of Nike, Adidas, Levi's, Gap and IKEA as its customers.
The company employs 20,000 staff in more than 70 countries across six continents, and its products are used in a huge variety of products, from jeans and trainers, to teabags, surgical threads and fibre-optic cables.
With such a wide range of products, and an employee base spread across the world, the company's CIO, Richard Cammish, has had a tough job on his hands in terms of reducing IT complexity, enabling mobility and ensuring the firm safeguards itself from cyber threats.
To enable mobility, and encourage collaboration, the company moved away from what Coats employees labelled a "wretched email system" - Lotus Notes - to Microsoft Office 365, and this then triggered an interest in other unified communications capabilities offered by Microsoft.
"We now have a highly sophisticated integrated unified communications capability with enterprise voice built into it," Cammish says.
He adds that the company now aims to move at least half of its 2,000 mobile workers from Windows 7 to Windows 10 over the next 12 months, while it is also looking at using Microsoft's Intune mobile device management system to create a remote desktop capability.
"For me, there is a broader philosophy here; we need to make sure that all our mobile white-collar workers - particularly our senior executives - have the tools they need to do their job anywhere in the world," he says.
But while shifting to a new operating system is a huge change, it isn't as hard as some of Cammish's other challenges; chiefly reducing complexity and beefing up the firm's security.
Lashing out at the "legacy vendors"
Cammish slams the likes of SAP and IBM, who he calls "legacy vendors", because of their complicated software licensing models.
"This is an industry issue, where companies like SAP, Oracle, IBM and to a lesser extent Microsoft may find it mildly insulting to be called legacy vendors. But to pick through their licensing model is incredibly complex," he says.
"These companies have had products that have been running in organisations like mine for a few years and they have renamed products and upgraded products so that when you come to do a licence audit, you struggle to see [what is going on], and the first rule is to stay compliant.
"It's one of the contractual obligations, but it's very difficult to stay compliant if you cannot understand, with a degree of clarity, what products you have running," he adds.
Cammish says these vendors "make life so darned confusing".
"[We spend a lot time] just trying to understand what their licensing and revenue model is, when we should be focused on implementation and delivering value," he says.
But for Coats plc, the issues with IBM ran far deeper than just confusion over its licensing terms.
The UK firm terminated its data centre services contract with IBM because it felt the tech giant simply could not meet its requirements.
"IBM was the biggest data centre provider for us in 2012, but by the end of 2014, it was no longer a service provider to Coats because they lacked relevance, they lacked the service portfolio, they lacked the commercial flexibility and they lacked organisational agility," Cammish says.
Removing IBM as a service provider took a couple of years, during which time Cammish said he used virtualisation as a way to continue to squeeze out value from the technology that it had.
"First you have to take what you've got and squeeze the living daylights out of it, so you make sure you've only got the number of services you need," he says.
"What IBM would say is, [virtualisation] means a reduction in revenue, when all we're doing is making sure our data centre engine is efficient and as slick as possible.
"Once you've squeezed it, you can look at alternative vendors, so we moved to a service provider based in Austria who were running at a much cheaper price point [than IBM]," he adds.
Coats is now moving to Microsoft Azure because of its strong relationship with the software giant.
Cammish says that the termination of IBM's contract should serve as a warning to another Coats plc's IT service provider: SAP.
"SAP's product set is effectively 20 years old, and they've realised now that they need to re-architect their technology stack - it's quite ‘sticky'," he says.
But Cammish believes that the best way to use SAP is to "modularise" what it has to offer.
"If SAP want to stay in relevance, people like me have a choice. There are other tools on the market, you do not need to have SAP for everything, you can go best of breed.
"For example, we use BlackLine accounting and finance software, which costs us less than £100,000 in commercial terms, but if we had the same capability from SAP it would cost us in excess of £2bn," he claims.
Cammish suggests that if SAP was looking to increase its market share, it would have to bring better tools to the table.
"It's all about relevance, they have to have the right tools, the right price point, they have to have agility," he says.
"Even though we're a £2bn company, we'd like to think we're quite agile. We make decisions quickly and implement quickly and I see that trend growing ... you need flexible, agile service partners to work alongside you if they are to be relevant, and work alongside you as part of the journey," he adds.
One company that Cammish is fond of is internet security firm Zscaler.
"Zscaler was easy to understand. You have absolute confidence that you have purchased what you needed to, you can track usage and it's just a much simpler model, and it makes them easier to do business with [than 'legacy vendors']," he says.
Coats uses Zscaler as a web-filtering, internet-access control tool that helps the company's risk management committee to decide which websites its users can and cannot access, and which websites require a "proceed with caution" warning.
It's just one part of the firm's cyber defences, which Cammish believes will come under increased now that the firm has re-listed on the London Stock Exchange.
"Because of the nature of our business, with 80 per cent being B2B operations, we are not quite as vulnerable as [US adultery website] Ashley Madison, where there is a lot of personal consumer data. Our crafts business does have consumer data and protecting it is critically important, but whereas Ashley Madison would be a reputational and personal issue, in our world the bigger risk would be a hack to access personal banking information," Cammish explains.
But Coats has a number of measures in place to prevent this from happening, including a third-party payment provider that manages the data on its behalf.
Cammish believes Coats' intellectual property presents a tempting target for hackers.
"We have thread that has been impregnated with insecticide for mattresses, so that it kills bed bugs, and the patent and IP around that product we need to keep safe.
We're also doing research on creating spider silk to create the world's lightest and strongest thread," Cammish says, adding that if the technology and research behind such inovations got into the hands of competitors it would be highly damaging to the company.
DDoS attacks are the third form of cyber threat that Coats needs to be wary of, while Cammish says that a key issue within enterprises is to ensure that the workforce has been educated and that the right controls have been put in place.
"You can spend a stack of money on cyber security, but it is about increasing levels of controls and awareness," he says.
Cammish believes the main challenge is around applying controls and protocols across the entire organisation.
"You can be bullet proof with 99 per cent of your site, but you only need to leave one door open and you have ruined all of your cyber security controls," he says.
Synthetic Biology class
A class I'd love to take ...
http://synbiobeta.com/education/quick-start-introduction-to-synthetic-biology/
About The Course
You will get an introduction to the world of biology, biotechnology and synthetic biology. We start with an input/output approach to biological systems, then explain where biological molecules come from and how they are formed, what they look like and how they perform such a wide variety of functions. We then see how these very same properties of native cell function allow us to probe, manipulate, and modify cell function. With this core knowledge in hand, we’ll discuss state of the art industry applications, such as the ability of biological systems to produce a huge variety of chemicals including fuels, biomaterials, food and drugs and what modern methods are used for the manipulation of biological systems. We will discuss the start-up and industry landscape and review the latest technologies coming to market.
Who Should Take This Course?
This course is designed for people with little or no previous knowledge of biology but with some background in the shared engineering skillset of creative problem solving, iteration, classification, and archiving results. We will use analogies and stories from computer science and engineering to describe how cells, genes and organisms function and highlight the differences between these systems, both on a physical level and in terms of technological development. This approach helps us find useful places to apply our effort to improve synthetic biology and to craft high quality projects. If you already have an understanding of biology and are looking for an intermediate or advanced courses in synthetic biology or biotechnology then please contact us.
What Is The Course And Why Is It Unique?
Introduction to Synthetic Biology is a new course conceptualized and written by Dr. Josh Gilmore and Dr. John Cumbers. The course, to be held in San Francisco , provides an interactive class in synthetic biology for non-experts. The course is written for tech-professionals in other fields such as computer science, to learn about the growing power of biology to perform useful tasks and make high value products from drugs to spiders silk. We focus on analyzing the similarities and differences in our fields of study to make these lessons accessible, inspirational, and memorable.
Course Dates
Wednesday, September 30th (4 pm – 9 pm)
Wednesday, October 21st (4 pm – 9 pm)
Monday, November 16th (4 pm – 9 pm)
*Please note that all courses include dinner
Location
Autodesk, Pier 9, San Francisco, CA 94111
Spider Silk and Bioinspired Silk on Wettability
http://www.eurekaselect.com/125358
Abstract:
We review recent research on nanostructure and biological physical structure models of spider silk. We introduce the biomimetic methods and bioinspired technology about how to fabricate the silk. We also impose great importance on wettability of natural and artificial spider silk according to recent development and potential functions in new promising fields.
[... scroll down on the left to download the full PDF file].
Reinforced silk by feeding nanoparticles to silkworms
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acssuschemeng.5b00749
Reinforced and Ultraviolet Resistant Silks from Silkworms Fed with Titanium Dioxide Nanoparticles
As the perfect combination of strength and luster, silkworm silks have been widely used in many fields but still need improvements. This paper demonstrates an in vivo uptake of titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles by silkworms, leading to the direct production of intrinsically modified silk.
The nanoparticles can be easily incorporated into the silk gland of silkworm by using this method due to the interactions between TiO2 and silk fibroin molecules. Infrared spectra indicate that TiO2 nanoparticles confine the conformation transition of silk fibroin from random coil/a-helix to ß-sheet.
Results of synchrotron radiation wide-angle X-ray diffraction and small-angle X-ray scattering suggest that modified silks have lower crystallinity, higher mesophase content, and higher Herman’s orientation functions of crystalline region and mesophase region than control group.
The breaking strength and elongation at break of the modified silk can be improved up to 548 ± 33 MPa and 16.7 ± 0.8%, respectively, by adding 1% nanoanatase into the artificial diet.
Moreover, the TiO2-1% modified silk shows well-improved ultraviolet resistant property as the breaking strength only decreased 15.9% after exposure to ultraviolet light for 3 h. The in vivo modification method for silkworm silk is a green, sustainable, and promising route for commercial production in the future.
Great minds working together
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965174815300205
Targeted glycoengineering extends the protein N-glycosylation pathway in the silkworm silk gland
Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Volume 65, October 2015, Pages 20–27
Hideaki Mabashi-Asazuma, Bong-Hee Sohn, Young-Soo Kim, Chu-Wei Kuo, Kay-Hooi Khoo, Cheryl A. Kucharski, Malcolm J. Fraser Jr., Donald L. Jarvis.
Abstract
The silkworm silk glands are powerful secretory organs that can produce and secrete proteins at high levels. As such, it has been suggested that the biosynthetic and secretory power of the silk gland can be harnessed to produce and secrete recombinant proteins in tight or loose association with silk fibers.
However, the utility of the silkworm platform is constrained by the fact that it has a relatively primitive protein N-glycosylation pathway, which produces relatively simple insect-type, rather than mammalian-type N-glycans.
In this study, we demonstrate for the first time that the silk gland protein N-glycosylation pathway can be glycoengineered. We accomplished this by using a dual piggyBac vector encoding two distinct mammalian glycosyltransferases under the transcriptional control of a posterior silk gland (PSG)-specific promoter. Both mammalian transgenes were expressed and each mammalian N-glycan processing activity was induced in transformed silkworm PSGs.
In addition, the transgenic animals produced endogenous glycoproteins containing significant proportions of mammalian-type, terminally galactosylated N-glycans, while the parental animals produced none. This demonstration of the ability to glycoengineer the silkworm extends its potential utility as a recombinant protein production platform.
Genome Editing with CRISPR-Cas9
Lam Dong silk factory video
Imagine when Vietnam starts working with spider silk instead!
"Green" medical textiles
http://advancedtextilessource.com/2015/08/green-medical-textiles-the-next-phase/
Green medical textiles: the next phase
August 21, 2015 / Seshadri Ramkumar
Certain segments of the population today have a greater awareness of the composition of the individual constituents in products and are particular about a product’s environmental footprint. More importantly, among consumers who buy textiles and related products, environmental issues are of concern. Green products and technologies are desired particularly in metropolitan areas in developed economies. In cities like Washington, D.C., shoppers are charged 5 cents for plastic bags to encourage them to bring more eco-friendly reusable fabric shopping bags with them.
There is still a long way to go, but the textile industry has taken proactive steps to reduce environmental load by slowly and systematically moving away from processes and products that can pollute the earth. Among the different sectors within the textile industry, the technical textiles industry is playing its part to be environmentally friendly. With the medical textiles sector one of the top five performers among 12 product categories, it is in a position to make a meaningful contribution to this effort.
An eco-friendly attitude
Medical textiles over the past decade have registered an annual growth of four percent. According to a recent report by Research and Markets, the medical textiles sector is expected to have an annual growth rate of 3.87 percent over the next five years. Based on this figure, this sector’s growth will be higher than the GDP growth of leading economies such as the U.S. and Europe. With aging populations in the U.S., Europe and Japan—and a burgeoning population of young people in developing countries such as India—there will be a greater demand for medical and hygiene textiles. To date, the medical textiles sector has focused its attention on functionality, quality and standard compliance. The next phase should be to develop cost-effective “greener” processes and medical products to help the next generation health care industry.
Environmentally benign technologies
So many different physical and engineering technologies, such as gas plasmas, super-critical fluid extraction, laser and microwave technology, could be used to develop healthcare textiles. The performance and functionality of biomedical products can be enhanced by using such techniques.
Plasma, generally called the fourth state of matter, is eco-friendly. In the case of plasma technology, Europe has taken a lead role with good R&D funding from Europe’s “Framework Programme.”
One, ACTECO, is a program that focused on plasma science to improve surface functionalities of textiles for packaging and medical applications. One application of plasma technology is to enable plasma as a conduit to coat durable antimicrobials. In an ACTECO project, antimicrobials such as silver and ammonium chloride agents were deposited using different forms of plasmas, such as atmospheric plasma.
Bodily fluid repulsion is an important requirement for surgical gowns and drapes. Environmentally benign plasma at room temperature has been effectively used to make cotton surgical gowns water repellent by grafting chemicals such as heptadecafluorodecyl acrylate, minimizing water and other application fluids.
In addition to imparting super hydrophobicity and fluid repellency, plasma bombardment has been successfully utilized to create minute pores in polypropylene spunbond nonwovens to enhance surgeon’s comfort, while wearing such gowns for long duration during complex surgical procedures. More importantly, continuous and cost-effective atmospheric plasma was used in an industry/academia collaborative project involving Enercon Industries and Texas Tech. The project aimed to make synthetic polypropylene “cotton-like.”
Plasma can also be used as an effective sterilization tool. With the advent of continuous plasma, commercial use has become cost effective with less consumption of water and chemicals. According to Dr. Krupakar Murali, CEO of Multiversal Technologies Inc., whose doctoral research at University of Wisconsin-Madison focused on plasma physics, “Plasma will help with zero water consumption, no effluent and a smaller footprint.”
Herbal textiles
Green chemistry is a major research area in the field of chemical sciences with good government support. Historically, many natural products and herbs have been used for ages in medicine. Many branches of medicine have fully evolved that depend on natural products. Alternative medicine such as Ayurveda (North India), Siddha (South India), Unani (Greece/Arabia) exploit the benefit of natural herbs. The modern pharmaceutical industry is using natural herbs in many formulations; aloe vera, for example, is used extensively in cosmetics.
Recently, the medical textiles industry has started paying attention to these nature-based materials for developing premium healthcare products. A new field of textiles known as “herbal textiles,” is slowly developing. Healing textiles, diabetic control textiles, baby and adult care wipes have all used natural herbs. For example, the government of India has invested heavily in biotextiles, and a Center of Excellence in this field has been set-up in Avinashilingam University for Women in the South Indian textile city of Coimbatore. Research programs in this center focus on herbal finishing of textiles for biomedical applications.
For instance, a project carried out by Professors Vasugi Raaja and Prabha focuses on using atmospheric plasma to couple natural herbs to natural textiles. Specifically, plasma has been used to couple herbs such as guava (pisidium guajava) and prickly chaff flower (also known as devil’s horsewhip) with cotton textiles. These natural herbs are phytochemicals that contain flavonoids, tannins and terpenoids. Surgical gowns have been developed that have been found to have antimicrobial properties due to these natural phytochemicals.
Psychologically these gowns appeal to users as being skin friendly and made of natural products. According to these researchers, “The textile industry is moving away from being a craft to high-tech industry that necessitates the need for using sustainable products.”
Resurgence of natural fibers
In addition to eco-friendly processes and natural herbs, there has been an upsurge in the use of natural and regenerated fibers such as cotton, PLA and viscose, to develop hygiene and healthcare products. Sustained efforts by Nature Works LLC, have enabled PLA to be meltblown resulting in its use in filtration and barrier materials.
After hurricane Katrina, the U.S. Department of Agriculture invested heavily in a research program in New Orleans to find new and alternative applications for cotton. Projects by a team led by industry veteran Dr. Amar Sawhney focused on developing spunlace wipes for medical and industrial applications from unbleached, mechanically cleaned cotton. One project showed that greige cotton nonwovens can absorb surfactants and chemicals better than bleached nonwovens, enabling new, cost-effective and eco-friendly antimicrobial wipes.
What next?
The medical textiles field is an important sector within the advanced textiles sector. It should now emphasize sustainability in developing processes and products that are cost effective, and it should be understood that in the long run, benefits such as a smaller carbon footprint, consumer acceptance and better overall performance will offset the cost associated with being “green.” A more sustainable, environmentally friendly medical textiles field has to progress in the developed economies—a challenge for the industrial fabrics industry.
Seshadri Ramkumar, Ph.D., is the director of the Nonwovens and Advanced Materials Laboratory, Texas Tech University.
Dreaming tonight of what the next few months will look like ... for KBLB, for my family, and many others in need.
Very nice to feel myself slowly drifting from "hoping" toward "expecting" ... and sensing less and less doubt that much more time will pass before very profitable news comes.
Best wishes to all.
A little inspiration
http://www.bloomberg.com/content-service/blog/2015-08-27/artisans-angkor/
Not related to KBLB or Vietnam, just high quality photos of silkworms.
Inspiring to me, though ... this is what it's all about!
Hope everyone has a great Labor Day weekend!
Thanks, Mike!
I do not come from a scientific background, so I always appreciate the clarifications and input of people like you and Truth and Zinc.
Immuno-Biological Laboratories Co. of Japan
http://www.ibl-japan.co.jp/en/business/silkworm/
[not sure how old this one is ...]
Protein Production Technology that Employs Transgenic Silkworms
Silkworms are living things that were repeatedly modified over the thousands of years of silk cultivation to produce bigger cocoons for greater yields of silk thread. At the result, silkworms gained the ability to generate a large amount of bulk silk protein in short period. We focused our attention on this incredible ability, and have spent a lot of time and effort over the last couple of decades researching and developing a transgenic silkworm technology that enables us to produce large amounts of recombinant protein in cocoons.
Our aim is to spark a “Silk Renaissance” by establishing an innovative protein production technology created through the fusion of classical silk culture technology and state-of-the-art transgenic silkworm technology.
Feature of the Protein Production Technology
1.Producing Bulk Protein at Reasonable Prices
We develop transgenic silkworms in which DNA for producing the targeted protein is inserted in the chromosome. The targeted protein is expressed in the silk gland, which is the tissue that synthesizes silk protein. This production system enables us to create large amounts of the targeted protein at a reasonable price by utilizing this explosive ability to synthesize silk protein. The gene introduced in the silkworms is stable and passed on to the next generation, making it easy to scale up production by breeding more silkworms.
2.Simple Purification
Simple Purification Azure-B stained transverse section of a silk thread
A silk thread consists of fibroin fiber, which forms the main part of the thread, and pultaceous sericin that exists in the surrounding fibroin (see the diagram on the right). We succeeded in creating a technology that expresses the targeted protein in the middle part of the silk gland where sericin is synthesized, and secretes it into the sericin part of the thread. The targeted protein expressed in the pultaceous sericin can be easily extracted by dipping the cocoons into a neutral pH buffer.
At the same time, because the sericin and fibroin do not dissolve in the buffer, allowing the targeted protein with a high level of purity to be collected. This also makes it easier to perform the protein purification process after collection.
3.Potential for Post-Translation Modification and Multimer Formation
Unlike microorganisms such as E. coli and yeast, a silkworm is a highly advanced eukaryote that can synthesize a protein with post-translational modifications such as glycosilation and disulfide bond formation. It also supports the synthesis of a multimeric protein with a large molecular weight, and consists of a number of subunits because the silk gland, which is an expressive part of the targeted protein, is the specific organ for synthesizing high molecular silk protein.
Various Protein Production Business using Transgenic Silkworms
1.Manufacturing of Antibodies used for Research Reagents and Diagnostic Products
Manufacturing of Antibodies used for Research Reagents and Diagnostic ProductsWe can manufacture stable, high-quality monoclonal antibodies using transgenic silkworms. We utilize the antibodies produced from transgenic silkworms in our ELISA assay kits, and we also supply them as materials to diagnostic products makers. Silkworms are not subject to animal protection, and offer the best alternative to production systems that use the ascites of mice.
2.Human Collagen for Cosmetic Materials
Human Collagen for Cosmetic MaterialsWe call the human type I collagen a1 chain produced by transgenic silkworms “Neosilk-Human Collagen I”, and commercialized it for use as a moisturizer in cosmetic products. It has also been used in Neosilk Cosmetic and sold as a material. Because this collagen is human-based, there is minimal risk of allergic reactions, making it very safe for the human body.
3.Development of Proteins for Use in Drugs
Development of Proteins for Use in DrugsWe have been working together with animal drug makers on the research and development of transgenic silkworm-based materials for animal drugs. We have been also developing transgenic silkworm-based technology for producing proteins that can be used in human drugs, antibody drugs, vaccines, and fibrinogen. We are preparing to construct a manufacturing plant that is GMP compliant because we aim to manufacture antibody drugs in future.
4.Production of Other Proteins
The production system which employs transgenic silkworms is suitable for producing high molecular weight proteins that consist of multiple subunits. We have been using a transgenic silkworm production system to develop proteins that are difficult to produce with other production systems. We can also produce proteins that are required to continuously produce bulk quantities for our customized services. If you have questions, please feel free to contact us.
Silk Bio-Ink
http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/presspacs/2015/acs-presspac-september-2-2015/silk-bio-ink-could-help-advance-tissue-engineering-with-3-D-printers.html
ACS News Service Weekly PressPac: Wed Sep 02 14:26:14 EDT 2015
Silk bio-ink could help advance tissue engineering with 3-D printers
"Polyol-Silk Bioink Formulations as Two-Part Room-Temperature Curable Materials for 3D Printing"
ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering
Advances in 3-D printing have led to new ways to make bone and some other relatively simple body parts that can be implanted in patients. But finding an ideal bio-ink has stalled progress toward printing more complex tissues with versatile functions — tissues that can be loaded with pharmaceuticals, for example. Now scientists, reporting in the journal ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering, have developed a silk-based ink that could open up new possibilities toward that goal.
Most inks currently being developed for 3-D printing are made of thermoplastics, silicones, collagen and gelatin or alginate. But there are limits to how these inks can be used. For example, the temperatures, pH changes and crosslinking methods that may be required to toughen some of these materials can damage cells or other biological components that researchers would want to add to the inks. Additives, such as cytokines and antibiotics, are useful for directing stem cell functions and controlling infections, respectively. To address these bio-ink limitations, David L. Kaplan and colleagues turned to silk protein and developed a way to avoid these harsh processing conditions.
The researchers combined silk proteins, which are biocompatible, and glycerol, a non-toxic sugar alcohol commonly found in food and pharmaceutical products. The resulting ink was clear, flexible, stable in water, and didn’t require any processing methods, such as high temperatures, that would limit its versatility. The researchers say the novel material could potentially be used in biomedical implants and tissue engineering.
The authors acknowledge funding from the National Institutes of Health.
( ... Imagine if they could use spider silk instead! ... )
Better ways to process silkworm cocoons
http://www.dailypress.com/news/science/dp-nws-silk-study-william-mary-20150902-story.html
William and Mary silkworm study could spin off in big ways
September 2, 2015, 8:47PM
Silks made from silkworm cocoons are known for their beauty, but not their strength.
That's one of the reasons applied scientist Hannes C. Schniepp and others have been studying the much stronger spider silk instead for its potential commercial and medical applications.
But it turns out the relative fragility of silkworm silk isn't entirely the worm's fault — it's largely because of the common but harsh processing method of boiling the cocoon to dissolve its fibers so they can be artificially reconstituted into textiles.
That process basically destroys the infinitesimal fibrils, or long strings of molecular chains, that line up naturally in the spinning process, thus leaving a far weaker substance behind.
Schniepp and research assistant Sean Koebley at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg now have the evidence to prove it.
For the first time, they removed silk directly from silkworms and compared it with processed silk under the most powerful microscope they could get, studying the two versions right down to their individual molecules.
"We captured the moment when those molecules start forming these tiny fibrils, and then compose these fibers," Schniepp said. "And it's been shown that, really, for the silk to have this amazing strength it needs to be composed out of these tiny nanofibrils."
Without them, he said, the molecules are reoriented in a featureless way and the fiber shows it.
"The magic is gone," Schniepp said. "And you don't get the same outstanding properties compared to the natural product."
How it's done
The 'magic' of silk — especially spider silk — is that it's actually a super-high-performance material, he said.
"Some spider silks, they're as strong as steel, or even stronger," Schniepp said. "In some ways, they're better materials than any synthetic materials we can make. So we're really trying to figure out what the miracles are of this material."
Silk that, gram for gram, is tougher than steel has a host of real-world applications, he said, including protective helmets and bulletproof vests, biofriendly electronic brain implants, greener replacements for petroleum-based materials, more fuel-efficient aircraft and more lightweight spacecraft.
For several years, Schniepp has been studying the unique silk of the brown recluse spider, which, unlike other spiders, spins flat ribbons rather than rope-like strands, giving the silk extraordinary strength and adhesion.
But for this latest study he chose the silkworm because it's far more readily available, makes far more silk and didn't require sacrificing his spiders.
While live spiders are basically "milked" for their silk in the lab for study, the worms have a different fate.
"It's a little more destructive," Koebley said. "We dissect them."
The finger-size worms have to be at just the right development stage for dissection, when about half their body weight is silk, he said. During the procedure, the silk gland is removed and cut open, releasing the silk "dope," or the highly concentrated protein the worm uses to spin into silk.
The silk dope is diluted in water, rotated at 3,000 rotations per minute to dry it and spin it up, then studied under an atomic force microscope. The reconstituted silk underwent the same process for more direct comparison.
"What we found is pretty striking evidence of different assembly morphology, which hadn't been shown so clearly before," Koebley said. "Showing that this reconstituted silk that everybody uses in research is different from the native silk in some pretty fundamental ways."
A better way
The fix, the researchers said, is coming up with a better way to process the cocoons.
"We're actually looking into that," Schniepp said, along with silk expert Fritz Vollrath, their collaborator at Oxford University in the United Kingdom.
He can't release any details of their new processing concept, he said, "but it looks promising at this point."
"And the technique we developed here — where we looked at the silk at super-high resolution or magnification (so) we can really see that level of individual molecules, how the silk is behaving — that will actually tell us or give us a method to test which processing route gives better silk and which processing routes would give us this dead kind of silk, where the protein doesn't behave anymore like it does in nature," Schniepp said.
Spider silk strength is also getting studied in other arenas, he said, including the use of genetic modification with spider DNA.
In Germany, genetically modified bacteria are producing a protein similar to that of spider silk, he said, while in Utah a group is genetically modifying goats to produce spider silk protein in their milk.
"It's a little bit scary," Schniepp said with a laugh.
But it's because the potential payoff is so high, he said, that "people are taking these desperate, almost crazy-seeming measures to come up with ways of making that material synthetically — we're absolutely convinced that it has these outstanding properties."
The results of their silkworm research were published last month in the journal Biomacromolecules.
Dietrich can be reached by phone at 757-247-7892.
Cheryl Hayashi interview on NPR
Forget Plastic. Spider Silk Could be Super Material of the Future
By HEATHER GOLDSTONE • AUG 24, 2015
http://capeandislands.org/post/forget-plastic-spider-silk-could-be-super-material-future
The audio is on that site as well, or here:
http://cpa.ds.npr.org/wcai/audio/2015/08/point_082415.mp3
48 minutes long if you want to listen to the whole thing.
Today's news on the CNN Money website
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/globenewswire/5923412.htm
Not the same as CNN television coverage to be sure, but at least moving in the right direction ...
Warwick Mills significantly expanding product lines
http://www.warwickmills.com/Job-Application.aspx
[ ... scroll down about halfway ... ]
Entry Level Content Marketing
Warwick Mills is hiring for an entry level Content Marketing position for a candidate who wants to have an impact. We are a small growing products company with a great web presence. We are significantly expanding our product lines and our e-commerce reach and we are growing our marketing team. If you want to make a difference and build a set of state of the art marking skills, please click here to fill out our online application.
[bold added by me]
Also ...
http://www.warwickmills.com/Engineering/Technical-Fabrics.aspx
Technical fabric solutions are only successful when they dovetail with realistic manufacturing capabilities. No one understands this philosophy better than the research and development teams at Warwick. We are uniquely qualified to handle all aspects of application projects in-house—beginning with research and development and culminating with the delivery of finished goods.
GE working with Spiber Technologies of Sweden
http://www.gereports.com/post/113283927175/science-of-superheroes-swedish-scientists-make
Science of Superheroes: Swedish Scientists Make Amazing Spider Silk from Modified E.coli Bacteria
August 25, 2015
If you live in a house, one of the most amazing materials known to humans is likely languishing in a dark corner of your basement. Spider webs and especially the draglines that form their structure are made from silk threads extruded by arachnids that can be several times tougher than Kevlar and stronger than steel by weight, but also extremely stretchy. Spider silk also has anti-bacterial properties, which may have led Greek and Roman soldiers to use it as wound dressing.
The idea of farming spiders for their silk, however, sounds like a nightmare in more ways than one. “Spiders are very difficult to farm,” observed the BBC. “They are predatory and will readily resort to cannibalism in the absence of other prey.”
Top image: Bundling several silk threads together can yield tough fibers of many shapes that are as strong as the tendons of mammals.
Above: Researchers can whip a solution of Spiber spider silk into a fluffy foam, just like working with milk. But the foam remains solid even when immersed in solvents or sterilized with heat.
But in 2002, a group of Canadian scientists came up with a terrific new idea. They transplanted spider genes coding for dragline silk proteins into goat cells, which expressed the silk in the goat’s milk.
Scientists have since proven that harvesting spider silk proteins from goat’s milk works. But a new crop of companies working to commercialize synthetic spider silk, such as Sweden’s Spiber Technologies AB, are moving beyond “spider goats.”
The Stockholm-based biomaterials company is using genetically engineered bacteria and GE protein purification technology to produce large quantities of the so-called spidroin proteins found in dragline silk, and then customize them for a variety of specific purposes.“Man-made spider silk can be adjusted to contain specific parts that bind to cells and promote wound healing, thereby enabling use within fields of tissue engineering, diagnostics and cell culture,” says Kristina Martinell, Spiber’s production director. “In short, it’s a tailor-made biomaterial.”
The team at Spiber starts by selecting a portion of the gene sequence spiders use to express spidroin. They clone the genes into E. coli bacteria (see below), rather than goats, and grow the microbes in a bioreactor. Next they use a protein purification system developed by GE Healthcare Life Sciences to purify the proteins for medical use and other life sciences applications.
Spiber’s product development is similar to the process faced by pharmaceutical companies, Martinell says. The team had to scale hurdles such as learning to manage the “stickiness” of spider silk protein. “This protein, in its nature is a bit sticky,” she explains. “It has to be treated very carefully according to a specific method.”
Back in 2011, when Spiber and GE started working together, GE got a chance to test the technology on Spiber’s new sample of proteins, and Spiber used it to evaluate the process. “As a small company, we are excited to have access to GE’s equipment and promising knowledge,” Martinell says.
A drop of liquid containing Spiber protein solidifies into a transparent layer on the surface of plastic or glass labware. The resulting film can be peeled off as a sheet.
Over time, the company’s technique has evolved to keep the material soluble until it is ready to be shaped into the arrangements needed for various applications
Spiber can now manufacture spider silk fiber, film, foam and even mesh. The company says that the material is as strong as mammalian tendons and remains stable at boiling temperatures of up to 267 degrees Celsius (512 Fahrenheit).
As a result, the range of potential products is huge. The company is working to apply spider silk in several medical fields, including cardiology, heart tissue regeneration, bone reconstruction, skin cell growth and vaccines.
Who’s to say that we won’t be able to engineer a certain superhero one day.
________________
See also: http://www.spiber.se/
Vietnam textile sector remains hot destination for FDI
http://www.fibre2fashion.com/news/textile-news/newsdetails.aspx?news_id=174289
Vietnam textile sector remains hot destination for FDI
August 24, 2015 (Vietnam)
Vietnam's textile sector ranked second in attracting FDI with more than $1.12 billion out of the nation's total estimated $5.85 billion worth of pledged investment in the first seven months of 2015, according to the government's Foreign Investment Agency. The FDI was designated for manufacturing and processing projects in the textile industry.
Vietnamese media quoted the agency as saying that the figure accounts for more than 20 per cent of Vietnam's total foreign investment inflows between January to July this year.
Leading experts have stressed that foreign-invested transnational companies, particularly those related to yarn manufacturing, are rushing to shore up their supply chains in anticipation of free trade agreements in the offing.
The yarn forward rules of origin do not allow for Vietnam based textile, garment or footwear manufacturers to benefit from the reduced tariffs of the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) unless all yarn is manufactured in Vietnam or any of the 11 other TPP nations.
Similar provisions are applicable to other free trade agreements. Experts say the complex rules of origin provisions are driving higher levels of inward FDI into the yarn industry in Vietnam.
Under the provisions of rules of origin, if a Vietnam based textile company imported yarn from China, it could not avail itself of reduced tariffs for product shipments to the US or any of the other TPP member nations.
Turkey has invested $660 million in a fibre producing plant in the southern province of Dong Nai, making it the largest project so far in this field.
The other two projects are a plant producing auxiliary products for textile in Binh Duong province and a fibre plant in Tay Ninh, worth $274 million and $160.8 million, respectively. Another $300 million project was listed by a British investor in Ho Chi Minh City.
Vietnam's free trade agreements with the US, Japan, South Korea and the EU are poised to increase opportunities and advantages for investors.
According to trade projections, garment exports to the EU are expected to rise by 50 per cent in the first year and around 20 per cent for the consecutive years once the Vietnam-EU free trade agreement comes into effect.
Reminders from the recent newsletter
http://www.icontact-archive.com/wk-fhLpOLhnO9pqlnYdPgfoUmyHsdiWx?w=3
"Market interest in our spider silk technology continues to grow. With the addition of Mr Rice to our team we have increased the amount of time spent working with new potential partners and customers. We are in ongoing discussions with firms in several different markets including; home furnishings, Structural composites, Cosmetics, and performance apparel.
We are working with potential key partners now to create materials and products for these different segments that we will use to validate our performance expectations and gauge customer interest. It is our goal to have at least one or two major sales and distribution agreements signed in the second half of the year."
[bold and underline added by me].
Best wishes to all.
Being long KBLB is a test of patience.
That in no way equates to it being a failure or remotely headed that direction.
Lots of voices here, many seem impatient--we all are--but the leap from "We are impatient" to "Kim must be failing" is a far stretch.
I'll listen to small infrequent updates from Kim and Jon before I'll take heed to impatient voices that, like me, still do not see the full picture. In good time we will see what's going on behind the curtain.
Long and glad of it.
Agreed, Romans!
I am all in, and 100% confident in a very bright future for KBLB.
I have been continuously studying this stock and the industry in general for five years, and what I see leads me to be very glad my money is on Kim.
Like everyone else, I wish it had already popped and then some, but in my opinion the wait will be more than worth it.
Best wishes to all.
Increasing industrial demands leads protech market
http://www.wtin.com/article/2015/august/1082015/increasing-industrial-demands-leads-protech-market/
Increasing industrial demands leads protech market
By Fiona Haran 10 August 2015
Last month WTiN reported that protech will play an increasingly bigger role in the growth of the smart textiles market, as industries such as the military aim for greater protection out in the field.
A new report from Markets and Markets has elaborated on this particular sector, tipping the protective clothing market to reach over US$9 billion by 2020, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.2% between 2015 and 2020.
According to the research, the market is mainly being driven by increasing demand from the oil and gas and construction and manufacturing industries. This is due to the growth in thermal, mechanical and chemical applications which use protecting clothing.
The key factors restraining this market include higher pricing of specialised apparel and increased automation in end-use industries. High pricing is one of the major setbacks that affect the growth of this particular market. Protective clothing involves high cost of manufacturing owing to the use of high-performing fabrics as well as multiple test methods and standards.
In addition, the growth of the protective clothing market is said to be reliant on the growth of the employment trend in various industries. The slowdown in the European market, for example, adversely affects the demand of various end-user industries, such as the chemical, manufacturing, and mining sectors, which in turn affects the growth of the protective clothing market in Europe.
Thermal is the major application of protective clothing, followed by visibility and mechanical. Thermal comprises the largest application in the protective clothing market and accounts for more than one-quarter share. The North America region dominated the market for thermal application of protective clothing, followed by Europe and Asia-Pacific. The market for biological/radiation application is projected to witness the highest CAGR of 12.0% between 2015 and 2020.
Driving forces
The leading players in the protective clothing market include Ansell Limited (US) Lakeland Industries (US), Teijin Limited (Japan), Kimberly Clark (US), Sioen Industries (Belgium), DU Pont (US), Honeywell International (US) and 3M Company (US).
Ansell, for example, recently launched a new range of ultra-light safety gloves, manufactured from Dyneema fabric, aimed at workers in the automotive, aerospace, electronics and white goods industries. While Teijin opened a new technology development centre in Matsuyama, Japan, featuring a burn evaluation system for protective clothing.
Sioen Industries achieved sales of €326.5 million in 2014; a large share of which was obtained from its protective clothing for the petrochemicals and forestry sectors. According to the company, its experience of safety standards across Europe, as well as its sophisticated test equipment puts its Apparel division in a strong competitive position.
DuPont Protection Technologies has made waves with its range of water-resistant ballistic solutions featuring Kevlar fibre in armour applications. While, most recently, 3M completed its acquisition of Capital Safety from KKR for US$2.5 billion. The aim is to boost its portfolio of respiratory and hearing protection solutions that help improve the safety and security of workers. The business also supplies products in other safety categories such as reflective materials for high-visibility materials and protective clothing and eyewear.
Industrial Complexes in Lam Dong province
http://www.lamdong.gov.vn/en-US/Investors/Industrial-complex/Pages/default.aspx
Not sure how often their website is updated, but has some interesting sections.
Best wishes to all.
Not at all, just thinking through all aspects and possibilities. I hope Kim gets to fully enjoy the rewards from all his hard work, for many years.
But life is unpredictable, as we all know, and I'm hoping there are contingencies in place for all sorts of possible situations, i.e. car accidents, devastating storms at one of the workplaces/labs, etc.
Does anyone know if any provision has been made for Jon Rice or someone else to continue the company in the event of Kim being out of the picture for any reason?
Thanks, Frank! I am hoping for a very good conclusion to 2015.
It's been a very long road but I expect we will all sense a collective sigh of relief and each have a nice celebration later this year. I wish it were this week, but sometime this year will have to do for now.
Ditto to the earlier comments about helping others as a result of coming KBLB success ... the greater the KBLB success, the more people I look forward to helping. I see so many in desperate need with no hope for even a little relief any time soon, and it breaks my heart.
All in good time.
Take care.
IFAI Expo for Advanced Textiles - Oct 2015
... would be awesome if KBLB had a major impact at something like this ....
http://ifaiexpo.com/features/atprogram
ADVANCED TEXTILES
SHOW FLOOR
Oct. 7-9, 2015 (Conference begins Oct. 6)
Anaheim, CA
ADVANCED TEXTILES EXHIBITORS:
Supply to suppliers:
• Fiber & yarn producers
• Chemical companies
• R&D firms
• Consultants
• Mill equipment
• Coaters & laminators
• Weavers & knitters
• Testing experts
Work with the non-traditional markets:
• Aerospace/Aeronautics
• Ballistics
• Cleanroom Technology
• Energy/Oil/Gas
• Forensics
• Geosynthetics
• Hazmat
• Health/Medical/Hygiene
• Large Structures
• Medical Device/Infection Control/Wound Care/Health Monitoring
• Military
• Performance Apparel/Sports
• Photovoltaics/Energy Harvesting
• Safety/Protective
• Smart Textiles
ATTENDEES INCLUDE:
• Owners/Presidents/VPs/GMs
• Engineers/R&D/Academics
• Designers/Product teams
• Supply chain managers
• Purchasers
• Production/Operations
• Marketers/Brand managers
• Retailers
ADVANCED TEXTILES CONFERENCE
Begins on Oct. 6 at 8:30am with programming, keynote luncheon and a networking event reception.
Advanced Textiles Conference speakers include:
• Evelyne Orndoff, NASA, NASA’s Wish List
• Dr. Quoc Troung, Natick, Influence of inherently super-nonwetting fiber and fabric designs on repellency and resistance to liquid penetration
• Steve Jesseph, Sustainability
• Michael Chalmer Dunn, M.Phil., Textiles Futurist, The Future of 3D Printed Textiles, Disruptive or Liberating?
• Dr. Harry Zervos, IDTechEx Inc., Flexible and wearable electronic devices; Market forecasts 2015 -2025
• Maurizio Macagno, Co-founder and CTO, Sensoria the Goretex of Wearables
• Dr. Michael Burrows, DuPont, An Inside Look at the Stretchable Electronic Ink Enabling Truly Manufacturable Smart Clothing
• Hardy Sullivan, Crypton, Super Fabric Advancements Combat Arch Villains
• Kerem Durag, Biovation II, Role of Sustainable Biopolymer Nonwovens in Hospital Acquired Infection Mitigation
• Rob Torgerson, RxFiber, Next gen biomaterials used in medical device applications
• Yuki Shiozawa, Taiyo Kogyo Corporation, Anti-bacterial and anti-virus performance of a novel membrane material treated with visible light-sensitive photocatalyst
• Wayne Rendely PE, Structural Fabric Tear Propagation
• Dr. Andrew Park, Principal Consultant, LIGHTWEIGHT SOFT BODY-ARMOR
• Shari Franklin Smith, 3M, The Science Behind Conspicuous Designs - Incorporating high visibility materials
• Dr. Michael Hogan, Applied DNA, Tracking Cotton Authenticity at the Molecular Scale
• Hugh Hoagland, Founder, ArcWear, Arc Flash Testing
• Dr. Erin Kirkpatrick, Exponent, Compression Testing for Performance Apparel
• Valerio Izquierdo, Groupe CTT Group, Flame resistance and thermal protection
• Dr. Jan Beringer and Ben Mead, Hohenstein Institute, Measuring the Cooling Power of Garments Using the Hohenstein “Watson” Test System
• Dr. Haskell Beckham, Exponent, Customized Testing of Advanced Textiles to Support Product Development and Claims
• Nicholas Rider, Nanoscience Instruments, Fast Fiber Analysis
• Jennifer Rodgers, ASTM
• Dr. Emiel DenHartog, NCSU/TPACC and Dr. Maureen S. MacGillivray, Testing 101 Sessions
• Amit Kapoor, First Line Tech, Diversification When Funding Disappears
• Mary Lynn Landgraf, OTEXA, New approaches to selling to the military
• Robert Bona, MBA; Maureen MacGillivray, Ph. D.; Tanya Domina, MBA, MUST PROGRAM
More speaker announcements coming soon!
TESTING PROGRAM
In cooperation with North Carolina State University TPACC
Show Floor Demo and Conference Sessions
Revised approach to testing
Ask the right questions when choosing test methods and interpreting test results. Through interactive demos, videos and conference sessions, experts will discuss current testing research, proper selection of test methods, interpreting test results and translating those results into product claims.
2015 Demo theme: Testing for Comfort in Performance & Protective Apparel
More information on the testing program>>
Display your performance or protective wear items >>
ADVANCED TEXTILES SOURCE
Official publication of the Advanced Textiles show floor and conference and the Advanced Textiles division.
Advanced Textiles Source is the worldwide publication dedicated to the technical textiles market featuring a website and e-publications.
It’s interactive and interdisciplinary, engaging readers throughout the supply chain with original content.
Features include: carbon fiber, ballistics, antimicrobials, photovoltaics, military smart textiles, thermal protection/control, health/medical, sustainability, energy harvesting, hazmat, protective products, invisibility, interactive, sports, cleanroom, hygiene, etc.
ADVANCED TEXTILES PRODUCT DIVISION
This division supports the safety, interactive, medical, protective and technical textiles industries.
Members include suppliers, product fabricators, equipment manufacturers, technical/business consultants and test laboratories.
Spider silk protein film patent by Randy Lewis
http://www.freshpatents.com/-dt20150723ptan20150202651.php
Recombinant spider silk protein film and method of synthesizing
Methods for forming useful films using recombinant spider silk protein are discussed. In one embodiment, the method involves dissolving silk protein in a sufficient quantity to form a film suspended in a solvent. The solution is then mixed with a compound selected from water, acids, imidazole crosslinking agents, antibiotics, nanoparticles, surfactants and combinations thereof.
Solubilisation of the protein in the solution is effected by microwave exposure. Once solubilized the microwave treated solution is poured onto a suitable substrate and dried in order to result in the final film, the protein may be plant, mammal or bacterially derived.
The film has widespread use and can be combined with any one of a number of substrates, examples of which include: a cosmetic composition; a pharmaceutical or medical composition, drug delivery system, artificial cell, contact lens coating, sustained-release drug delivery system, artificial skin graft; food composition; automotive part; aeronautic component; computer or data storage device, building material, textile, filter material, membrane material, nanomaterial, electronic component and combinations thereof.
USPTO Application #: #20150202651
Inventors: Randolph V. Lewis, Justin A. Jones, Chauncey L. Tucker
Publish Date
07/23/2015
Indian firms advised to increase investment in Vietnam
http://tuoitrenews.vn/business/29264/indian-firms-advised-to-increase-investment-in-vietnam-to-leverage-trade-deals
Indian firms advised to increase investment in Vietnam to leverage trade pacts
THOAI TRAN/TUOI TRE NEWS
UPDATED: 07/17/2015
The Consul General of India in Ho Chi Minh City has recommended that Indian enterprises, apart from expanding trade with Vietnam, should seriously invest in the Southeast Asian country to make use of future trade agreements.
When considering doing business in Vietnam, Indian companies should not think about the 90 million-strong Vietnamese market alone, but think about the much bigger ASEAN market, with 600 million people, Smita Pant, Consul General of India, said at a trade promotion and investment event held at the headquarters of the Ho Chi Minh City branch of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI).
The ASEAN members include Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam.
Vietnam will soon sign many large-scale free trade pacts with important partners like the EU and the U.S., which will make the country more attractive as a destination for investment to serve ASEAN and other big foreign markets, Consul General Pant said at the meeting between a delegation of 15 Indian firms and the business association along with many Vietnamese partners on Tuesday.
According to local experts, once the trade pact between Vietnam and the EU is signed this year, the bloc will liberalize 95-97 percent of tariffs on Vietnamese goods.
The realization of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement later this year will be beneficial to a small economy like Vietnam, and is expected to help raise the country’s GDP by more than 30 percent within 10 years, according to research by the U.S.-based Peterson Institute for International Economics.
The TPP is a proposed regional free trade agreement aimed at eliminating tariffs and lowering non-tariff barriers that is being negotiated by 12 countries throughout the Asia-Pacific region, which collectively contribute almost half of global output and over 40 percent of world trade.
The 12 countries are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam.
Earlier this year, Vietnam concluded many important free trade pacts with other foreign partners, such as the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), which includes Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan; and an agreement with South Korea.
As a result, Pant recommended that Indian firms should think over the trade aspect, and think more about direct investment to make use of all available opportunities that Vietnam will enjoy via these trade deals.
In 2015, according to the International Monetary Fund, India is considered a spotlight of the world economy, with gross domestic product growth potentially overtaking that of China for the first time since 1999, said Vo Tan Thanh, head of the VCCI branch in Ho Chi Minh City.
This growth is due to many positive factors, including the change in diplomatic policy of Look East into Act East by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi, the Indian government has introduced an Act East policy, an upgrade of the former Look East policy, in an effort to leverage its relations with East Asian countries.
The new diplomatic policy, accompanied by the ASEAN–India Free Trade Area, which will take full effect next year, and the establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community by the end of this year, will help leverage trade and investment relations between India and Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries, Thanh said.
Regarding trade relations, India is among the ten biggest international trade partners of Vietnam, and Hanoi is the 28th largest foreign trade partner of New Delhi, Thanh said, adding that two-way trade has grown rapidly, from over US$1 billion in 2006 to more than $8 billion by the end of last year.
Vietnam’s exports to India reached over $850 million in the first four months of this year, while imports topped $911 billion, a positive signal as the Southeast Asian country’s trade deficit with the South Asian nation has sharply dropped from over $3 billion in 2014.
As regards investment relations, as of June 2015, India ranked 30th out of 100 foreign countries and territories that have investments in Vietnam, with over 100 projects worth more than $380 million, according to Thanh.
**See also: http://tuoitrenews.vn/business/29349/tpp-train-too-attractive-for-vietnam-to-miss
Foreign Direct Investment expands
http://www.yarnsandfibers.com/news/textile-news/vietnam-firms-dwindling-fdi-textile-and-garment-expands#.Vb5ODbNVhHw
YarnsandFibers News Bureau, 2015-07-21 14:00:00 - Vietnam
Vietnam firms dwindling as FDI in textile and garment expands
Textiles and garments are the key export item of Vietnam, with $24 billion worth of export turnover in 2014 and an expected $27-27.5 billion in 2015. However, there is a big problem that while foreign invested enterprises are expanding, Vietnamese firms have dwindled.
The demand from Vietnam’s key export markets has decreased significantly, while the dollar has appreciated sharply, causing textile and garment export growth to slow down. This year, Vietnam’s textile and garment export turnover has reached $12 billion, a modest increase of 9 percent in comparison with the same period last year, a 3-year low, and much lower than the 19 percent growth rate last year. Vinatas has confirmed that the number of orders from Vietnam’s key markets such as the EU and Japan is on the decrease.
According to the Foreign Investment Agency (FIA), this year most of the large foreign direct investment (FDI) projects registered are in the textile & garment sector. The number of foreign invested garment and textile factories has been increasing dramatically as foreign investors have been flocking to Vietnam to take full advantage of the free trade agreements (FTAs) of which Vietnam is a member.
These include the project registered by Hyosung Dong Nai which has investment capital of $660 million, one by Worldon Vietnam at $300 million and one by Lu Thai Vietnam at $160 million. In late June, Binh Duong provincial authorities licensed Polytex Far Eastern Vietnam which plans to make synthetic fiber with capital of $274 million.
Vinatas’ deputy chair Pham Xuan Hong said though garment companies still have enough orders until the third quarter of the year, there are not many ‘attractive jobs’ and most of the orders are small. Though demand from the US has recovered well, the recovery cannot offset the decreasing demand from the EU and Japan.
Hong said that while the export prices remain unchanged, the input costs have increased sharply. Meanwhile, more and more foreign manufacturers have come to Vietnam where they compete fiercely with Vietnamese enterprises.
The current difficulties will last until next year at least and the situation will heavily depend on the financial crisis in Greece, according to Le Quang Hung, chair of Garmex Sai Gon.