it looks like the may have found a solution or work around to the issue
Obviously the scientific researchers have solved and blown by that issue (belief) a few years ago. Now it is a matter of "best fit technology" so that true potential is achieved at the most economic levels. MIT Labs and perhaps a dozen others have come into the market to help define and improve solutions, some into this for the profits and others for the scientific discoveries.
WHY? Because this solution projects to be so much cheaper than growing the silk within worms. Just as Rayon proved itself, the "goo" approach will as well and consequently the market will belong to those using that technology.
Keiji Numata †, Michaela R Reagan †, Robert H Goldstein ‡, Michael Rosenblatt ‡, and David L Kaplan *† Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tufts University, 4 Colby Street, Medford, Massachusetts 02155, United States Department of Physiology, Tufts University School of Medicine, 136 Harrison Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02111-1800, United States
David. L. Kaplan, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tufts University, 4 Colby Street, Medford, Massachusetts, 02155 USA. Phone: (+1)-617-627-3251. Fax: (+1)-617-627-3231. E-mail: david.kaplan@tufts.edu.
§ Author Present Address
Enzyme Research Team, Biomass Engineering Program, RIKEN Institute, 2-1 Hirosawa, Wako-shi, Saitama, 351-0198, Japan.
The present study demonstrates pDNA complexes of recombinant silk proteins containing poly(l-lysine) and tumor-homing peptides (THPs), which are globular and approximately 150–250 nm in diameter, show significant enhancement of target specificity to tumor cells by additions of F3 and CGKRK THPs.
We report herein the preparation and study of novel nanoscale silk-based ionic complexes containing pDNA able to home specifically to tumor cells. Particular focus was on how the THP, F3 (KDEPQRRSARLSAKPAPPKPEPKPKKAPAKK), and CGKRK, enhanced transfection specificity to tumor cells.
Genetically engineered silk proteins containing both poly(l-lysine) domains to interact with pDNA and the THP to bind to specific tumor cells for target-specific pDNA delivery were prepared using Escherichia coli, followed by in vitro and in vivo transfection experiments into MDA-MB-435 melanoma cells and highly metastatic human breast tumor MDA-MB-231 cells.
Non-tumorigenic MCF-10A breast epithelial cells were used as a control cell line for in vitro tumor-specific delivery studies.
These results demonstrate that combination of the bioengineered silk delivery systems and THP can serve as a versatile and useful new platform for nonviral gene delivery.
A team of researchers from RIKEN and Spiber Inc. in Japan, led by Dr. Keiji Numata, visited Penang from 2-4 March 2015 for sampling of spiders in order to study the properties of spider silk, a functional biomaterial.
Harvesting of silk from spider and processing of samples were conducted in the Molecular Laboratory of Professor. Dr. K. Sudesh Kumar in Centre for Chemical Biology (CCB).