Look carefully at this line: “these new lines will become the bedrock upon which future production is built.”
First, we have a future tense: ‘will become.’ Not ‘are.’
Next we have the words “bedrock upon which future production is built.”
Here is a very different statement that Thompson could have made: “these new lines will be used for production in the summer of 2024.”
Bedrock is not used to make stuff. We don’t build skyscrapers out of bedrock. We build it upon bedrock. Dig down to the bedrock, pour the foundation on top of that, build the skyscraper on the foundation. The new lines aren’t the foundation upon which future production is built. They ‘will become’ (in the future) the bedrock upon which new lines of silkworms will be developed. Those new lines will be used for production.
What Thompson is telling us is: Step 1) Refine the new lines to make them better in some respect; Step 2) Develop variations on these lines that can be used in future production.
With this, he is informing us that the current lines could not be used for silk production, even if they were improved. I’m wondering if they don’t contain enough spider silk genes to make DS or MS, just some ‘weak tea’ version of either strain.
Not only that, there were still problems with how ‘robust’ these silkworms are.
Make them more robust; Breed in the spider silk genes. Given how long it has taken to reach this point, no wonder Thompson is talking about ‘future production’ and not giving any sort of timetable.
I’m glad that Thompson has hired people who are experts in breeding silkworms. I assumed you put the male silkworms and the female silkworms together, got eggs, and you were done. Recognizing the problem and finding people who can help to fix it is a great step forward.
Clearly he has moved on from talking about ‘acclimatization.’ He indicated that he didn’t really understand what the problems were. His experts are helping. Whether they know enough about breeding genetically modified silkworms is another issue, one that we will find out about in the future, I suppose.
Out of 6 lines of silkworms intended for the quad-hybrid designs, KBLB has only bred 3 of them to the point where they are homozygous for spider silk genes. Presumably KBLB has been working on the quad-hybrid lines for all of 2023, and only 3 are homozygous? It will take nearly all of 2024 to get to the point where the quad-hybrid lines can be tested.
Enthusiasm curbed.
AI
