Kraig Biocraft Laboratories Inc (KBLB)

[Stowe]

A separate venture, Michigan-based Kraig Biocraft Laboratories, has banked on the hope of spider-silk-spun-via-silkworm since the early 2000s. Last year, they developed a new technique to make custom silks. Silkworm DNA normally instructs cells to make a protein consisting of one “heavy chain” capped by two much smaller chains. Kraig Labs’ “knock-in, knock-out'' tech gives the silkworm’s genetic machinery new instructions, essentially overwriting the previous recipe, replacing that heavy silkworm chain with a tougher spidery alternative. “The world knows how to make silk. We've been doing it for four millennia,” says Jon Rice, Kraig Labs’ COO. “All we're doing is changing the recipe.”


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Kraig Labs has engineered silkworms to spin spider-like silk fibers.
COURTESY OF KRAIG BIOCRAFT LABORATORIES
Kraig Labs claims to have produced the first “nearly pure” spider silk fabricated by silkworms and has scaled up production. It has partnered with a company in Singapore to make luxury street wear and is working with Polartec on performance outerwear. The company is also considering biomedical uses and bullet-resistant protective apparel.

SO IS THE silk revolution finally here? “There's a lot of excitement. And it’s a vibrant community,” says Marelli. But, he adds, “we need to evaluate its sustainability.” Being able to transport it easily would be a breakthrough. In 2019, Kaplan’s lab invented a method to create dry pellets of regenerated silk that companies could simply melt, mold, and use, similar to how plastic is shipped. That would make it shelf-stable and eliminate water weight—both would reduce the environmental cost of moving it.

Not everyone, of course, is convinced that some of silk’s long-hyped or most flashy uses are around the corner. Still, Omenetto stresses that the hype that popularized the field before it chugged to the last mile also helped it get to that point. ”It establishes your sense of wonder about something. And that's important,” he says.

“While seeing a strawberry go bad slower than the one next to it may not be the sexiest thing in the world,” Behrens agrees, “it may be the most meaningful thing.”

And if you’re wondering what happened to one of the most spectacular early demos of engineered silk—the transgenic goats—they’re still around. A herd of about 40 of them still frolic around a campus pasture in Logan, Utah, munching on grass and hay.

https://www.wired.com/story/the-race-to-put-silk-in-nearly-everything/