For those folks obsessed with dilution, commercialization of MS, and with information concering Big Red, ZincFinger posted this a few days ago. Please read if you are interested:
Re: Big Red
There haven't been that many opportunities for failures unless KBLB has been doing a lot of insertions it hasn't told us about.
The results of one of the first two rounds of ZF GMs was never announced. It was the one that was being done to Monster Silk worms (worms previously modified with the piggyBac) (the other of the first two rounds was done to LCWs (Large Commercial Worms).
IMHO it's very likely that that round was done to improve something about Monster SIlk that was making it difficult to commercialize. If so KBLB might well have not wanted to publicize it and draw attention to the fact that there had been a problem ("there was a problem, but we've just corrected it" PRs don't tend to go over well. Biotechs generally don't make such announcements because temporary problems in R&D are the rule, not the exception.)
Other than that, there haven't been any GMs so far "unaccounted for". Big Red is clearly a result of the multiple genetic insertions done last March. The results came a lot later than expected but then we don't know what was involved. After making the insertions they;d have had to take a few generations to breed them all into the same line(s) of worms but it seems to have taken longer than that would account for. Could have been any number of things: for example, LCW are very highly bred and, like most such commercial animals, not that hardy. They may have had trouble tolerating the foreign proteins and had to be interbred with non commercial silkworms (far more robust) to make them stronger. The point is, that we don't know but a few months longer than expected in biotech is no big deal at all.
ESPECIALLY since adding a whole complex of genes that have to all be very tightly regulated together (to keep the proper proportions of silk proteins or the structure of the silk won't be right) in less than one year is a phenomenal achievement (No one has ever come remotely close to doing that before). Such complex changed typically take a dozen years to accomplish IF they can be at all (frankly I don't know of ANY comparable achievements. Several companies have added multiple genes, but ones that act largely independently of each other. To add a set that has to be so tightly regulated together is, AFAIK, unprecedented.
So I really don't see any justification for saying a trial failed. The least favorable plausible interpretation IMHO is that Monster Silk had some problem that needed to be corrected and one of the first two ZF GMs was for that purpose and it worked (which would explain the timing of them starting the pilot project at this time: after correction of that problem (IF that conjecture is correct) they would have had to start ramping up the population again from scratch which would put them right about where they are now.
This company has only been in existence five or six years now and has made outstanding progress in that time (it takes most biotechs 12 to 15 years to get to their first product (and a LOT more dilution than KBLB has experienced).
Note that Big Red will be able to make use of the same facilities MS is using. So it will be able to have sizable samples available much earlier on. And they can even make early production runs of it using the exact same facilities (just use Big Red cocoons for a few days and keep the run separate). So Big Red could move forward a lot faster than MS has. (in fact may be as little as 8 to 12 months behind it IF there are no problems that need to be corrected or adjustments to suit customers.
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