Replies to post #203661 on Kraig Biocraft Laboratories Inc (KBLB)

[Darryl_T]

Bolt and Thread is a private held company for one reason. They don't

stand a chance as a public company. KBLB is a public held company

and stand on it own strength. The comparison between these two

companies is weak. No risk, no gain, no comparison. KBLB is king

the spider silk.

[Fussy Group]

what about the poisoning by overspray of pesticides near mulberry?

yes, it is a big deal and worthwhile that others have posted about the temperatures during Winter.

also, a big deal, worthwhile, but as yet un-commented upon, is that separate from cold weather, separate from ten months of growth of mulberry trees, someone had found and posted for us that Viet Nam had engaged in inter-cropping, that the mulberry trees are interspersed among other crops. for those other crops, overspray of pesticide has contaminated the mulberry leaves.

isn't everyone curious and does anyone have any data on what is being done about that poisoning of the silk-makers as a failure point?

I worry about lack of disclosure about the monitoring of contaminants. there being contaminants in material used for say fibers reinforcing tires or shoe soles is unlikely to be a problem. more risk of spreading contaminants to where harm is done might come from say using as a brake pad or a personal protective wearable.

how safe is chain of making and using products like wound dressings if contaminants are carried in the material?

my expectation is that the stronger and lighter fibers are going to find high value markets in transportation and likely we will see a few years of development efforts by customers. the customers need to discover whether the fibers can be engineered with the right resins for the right results. I think we will see chopped fibers integrated into feed for three dimensional printing as one of the earliest small but high value markets.

according to my expectations, while fun to imagine apparel as a huge market, the price and value points probably are not going to be there.

[want2retire]

Significant amount of debt, no doubt, for Bolt. Probably explains their pivot away from the non-cost effective spider silk variant they were working on. Appears their focus has shifted, undoubtedly driven in part by the VCs calling the shots.

[GTman1]

Time and again I have offered up evidence that the bioprocess of protein production is cost prohibitive. Unless there is some monumental breakthrough in this process, Bolt Threads and any other fermented protein producer will NEVER make cost effective fibers.

It costs about $60 per gram to make human insulin (the same process Bolt Threads uses to make their silk proteins). Note that this is the production cost, not even the selling price. This, coincidentally, is roughly the same price of gold at this moment. Bolt Threads, Spiber, Amsilk, and any other protein fermentation company would be better off trying to sell T-shirts made out of pure gold fiber than using the protein fermentation process.

The costs of these proteins in the pharmaceutical industry are cost effective because a gram of protein can go along way in therapeutics. It is absolutely NOT cost effective in textiles.

I provided this link before but this is literally a textbook on the bioprocess that Bolt Threads and others use to produce their proteins. Give it a good read if you want to learn the "truth" 4 once.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/306253307_BioProcess_Design_and_Economics_2nd_Edition