Kraig Biocraft Laboratories Inc (KBLB)

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So scientists have tried to pull spider silk from tobacco plants, bacteria and even goats, with mixed success. Silkworms, on the other hand, are natural silk-spinning factories. A worm’s silk gland takes up about a third of its entire body, Fraser said, and a single cocoon can yield a thread up to a mile long. Silkworms have been domesticated for centuries and are already used for making mass quantities of marketable silk.

We can now make proteins that have the properties of spider silks in a commercializable platform,” Fraser said. Fraser and his collaborators, including biochemist Randy Lewis of the University of Wyoming and Kim Thompson of Kraig Labs, presented the results in a press conference on the Notre Dame campus Sept. 29.

The resulting thread is actually a hybrid of specially engineered spider silk and natural silkworm silk. Even though they don’t use “straight-up spider silk” — which wouldn’t bond well with the silkworm proteins — the resulting strands are 80 percent as strong, Fraser said. The combination of their strength and flexibility, which materials scientists call toughness, approaches that of Kevlar.

BASIS http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/10/silkworm-spider-silk/

Outside of the lab, the material could find any number of uses -- from athletic clothing to warfare.

"I see it going anywhere that's profitable," Fraser said with a laugh. "I particularly favor commercial uses such as ultrastrong lightweight fabric, structural fabric, bulletproof vests or medical uses."

Fraser says textiles made from worms that produce artificial spider silk could reach the market within a year -- but he's just getting started on his research.

"We see that there is plenty of room for improving on what we have done," said Fraser, who is already at work on "phase two transgenics" that he hopes will bolster the material's strength and flexibility.

"We know that what we have done is not nearly the full extent of what we're capable of doing."

Basis http://www.aolnews.com/discuss/2010/10/14/scientists-create-super-strong-spider-silk-with-transgenic-bre#gcpDiscussPageUrlAnchor