Major scientific breakthrough! Genetically engineered silkworms produce spider silk. Kraig Biocraft Laboratories inc.(KBLB.PK) in a collaborative research and development effort with the University of Notre Dame and the University of Wyoming, has succeeded in producing transgenic silkworms capable of spinning artificial spider silks. Many have tried to achieve what is being touted as the Holy Grail of fiber technology, but none have succeeded before now.
Dr. Malcolm Fraser, a Notre Dame professor of biological science has created the patented piggyBAC invention, (PiggyBac is a piece of DNA -- known as a transposon that can insert itself into the genetic machinery of a cell) for the first time in history, there are now living silk worms that can provide commercially viable amounts of spider silk. Astonishing as this is, there is more; using Dr, Fraser’s piggyBAC process they have so far produced 12 different types of spider silk strands.
Kraig Biocraft can now customize their process to suit different market applications. In nature it takes half a million spiders to make 1 mile of silk, it takes but twenty of these genetically engineered silk worms to produce the same amount. Kraig Labs has applied for several trademarks in anticipation of what it believes will be a hot market commodity.
"This research represents a significant breakthrough in the development of superior silk fibers for both medical and non-medical applications," said Dr. Fraser, "The generation of silk fibers having the properties of spider silks has been one of the important goals in materials science."
Natural spider silks have a number of unusual physical properties, including significantly higher tensile strength and elasticity than naturally spun silkworm fibers. The artificial spider silks produced in these transgenic silkworms have similar properties of strength and flexibility to native spider silk. Silk fibers have many current and possible future biomedical applications, such as use as fine suture materials, improved wound healing bandages, or natural scaffolds for tendon and ligament repair or replacement.
Spider silk-like fibers may also have applications beyond biomedical uses, such as in bulletproof vests, strong and lightweight structural fabrics, a new generation athletic clothing and improved automobile airbags. Until this breakthrough, only very small quantities of artificial spider silk had ever been produced in laboratories, but there was no commercially viable way to produce and spin these artificial silk proteins. Kraig Biocraft believed these limitations could be overcome by using recombinant DNA to develop a bio-technological approach for the production of silk fibers with a much broader range of physical properties or with pre-determined properties, optimized for specific biomedical or other applications.
Fraser, with the assistance of University of Wyoming researcher Randy Lewis, a biochemist who is one of the world's foremost authorities on spider silk, and Don Jarvis, a noted molecular geneticist who specializes in insect protein production, genetically engineered silkworms in which they incorporated specific DNA's taken from spiders. When these transgenic silkworms spin their cocoons, the silk produced is not ordinary silkworm silk, but, rather, a combination of silkworm silk and spider silk. The genetically engineered silk protein produced by the transgenic silkworms has markedly improved elasticity and strength approaching that of native spider silk.
"We've also made strides in improving the process of genetic engineering of these animals so that the development of additional transgenics is facilitated," Fraser said. "This will allow us to more rapidly assess the effectiveness of our gene manipulations in continued development of specialized silk fibers." Since silkworms are already a commercially viable silk production platform, these genetically engineered silkworms effectively solve the problem of large scale production of engineered protein fibers in an economically Practical way.
Kraig Biocraft CEO Kim Thompson, documented to have an IQ higher than 99.9% of the population of the world, has been instrumental in creating silk worms that spin spider silk - the worlds strongest natural fiber. Spider silk has a tensel strength stronger than steel. Kim first developed an innovative business model where he was able to link various universities together to create a "super lab", to genetically engineer silkworms.
"Using this entirely unique approach, we have confirmed that transgenic silkworms can be a potentially viable commercial platform for production of genetically engineered silk proteins having customizable properties of strength and elasticity," Fraser said. "We may even be able to genetically engineer fibers that exceed the remarkable properties of native spider silk." The genetic engineering breakthrough was announced on Sept. 29th, by Dr. Fraser, Dr. Lewis and Kim Thompson at a press conference on the Notre Dame campus.
In fact, not only have the scientist been able to perfect the gene insertion techniques in order to create the transgenic animals, they now have the ability to alter genes that are going into the silkworms. This new breakthrough gives them the ability to create an almost infinite number of new transgenic strains to produce many different desired products in unlimited fields.
For more information on Kraig Biocraft Laboratories please visit the Company's web site: http://www.KraigLabs.com
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