Replies to post #17912 on Kraig Biocraft Laboratories Inc (KBLB)

[es1]

ND has the piggybac patents for the process we used to make the spiderworms and always have. We have the licensing right for the piggybac method for our slkworms.

Piggy bac works well as a way to tell if you are getting the DNA you want into the worm. but it is very random. To simplify the process You insert a thousand worms and see if one glows. When you get a glow you test the silk and see if you get spider proteins. It works but trying to get the DNA to land where you want is fairly random.

Zinc finger tech allows you to pick the area of the DNA to modify.

If you notice in the PR Sigma says

The precise gene targeting and high efficiency of Sigma's ZFN technology allows KBLB to build on its revolutionary proof of concept research, by concomitantly targeting the insertion of spider silk genes into the silkworm genome while removing endogenous silkworm silk genes.

Piggy bac is sorta like dropping a plane load of hats on a stadium. Some of the hats will land on the heads of the people but most will hit the floor. After that you have to test each one to see it the hat landed correctly and is not on backwards.

With zinc finger we can not only place the hats on the heads of the people. We can remove the hats they are wearing before the new hat is placed.

IMO this makes piggybac obsolete for us. We do not need to renew our agreement with ND if it is not in our best interests.

[rockgirl]

I am pretty sure the only thing that has expired is our agreement for the use of lab space at ND. None of this should have any effect on the patents and our option that we exercised previously that gives us exclusive worldwide rights to commercialize our silk and/or worms that resulted from our collaborative efforts with ND.

I like the idea of getting our own lab, then Dr. Fraser can simply free-lance with us if KBLB is going to continue the piggyBac experimentation. That is Fraser's baby, not ND's. This would enable us to "own" more of what we come up with rather than leasing it from the University....which is basically what we are doing now.