Important points about the PNAS study:
The full PNAS publication can be purchased online from the PNAS website for a mere $10. I don't usually purchase research articles but considering the importance of this one, I did. (You can't cut and paste, much less post the whole thing (which I wouldn't if I could because of copyright).
I've already posted the important details (very briefly
that the toughness was equal to or better than dragline spider silk, the strength was a lot better than silkworm silk (but not nearly as good as Monster Silk WHICH IS A LATER DEVELOPEMNT).
There was some variation of results between lines (which was both expected and desirable: that's why they created different lines in the first place) and there was some variation among lines.
The variation among lines was probably NOT unexpected IMHO: KBLB was doing over 5,000 GMs/week for many weeks. HOW did they do that? I suspect it was to deliberately make the piggyBac unstable so it would keep shifting around and thus do the work itself with no further input. They would have had a way to remove that instability once the right GM had been accomplished. BUT THEY WOULD NOT REMOVE THE INSTABILITY UNTIL THEY HAD TESTED AND CONFIRMED THAT THE DESIRED GM'S WERE IN PLACE. Since that what this study was (the testing and confirmation of the GMs) naturally the GM's would have still been in place in the tested animals.
I suspect that many knowledgeable potential investors knew that such instability is a problem in production animals but failed to appreciate that, in this case, it was an intentional and very temporary thing. Without it ND would not have been able to accomplish the 5,000 GMs/week necessary to achieve success!
The instability would be a problem in production animals. But there is every reason to suspect that Dr Fraser had known about them beforehand, had, in fact, deliberately caused them and had a plan for removing them at the appropriate time (which was AFTER the tests that were the basis for the publication were done).
The main point was that multiple tests confirmed that the spider silk protein (with appropriate alterations necessary to accomplish the results (which will, of course, be covered in the patent!)) was structurally incorporated into the worm silk and very significantly improved the important commercial properties.
THe perecentage of SSP was only between 2 and 5%. BUT THAT WAS ENOUGH TO MARKEDLY IMPROVE THE COMMERCIAL PROPERTIES. Note also that Monster Silk is a later development and of much higher strength (about 80% of spider silk vs about 50+% in the study (silkworm silk is only 40% so that's a > 25% improvement and Monster Silk is a 100% improvement)
