Silk is a lustrous, protein-based fiber that lends opulence to textiles and provides strength to medical sutures. Silkworm farms manufacture almost all commercially available silk, using a method that has been around for thousands of years. Silkworm cocoons, typically from the Bombyx mori moth, are gathered and degummed, with the silk filaments reeled and twisted into yarn. Spider silk is five times stronger than steel and three times tougher than Kevlar, a p-aramid fiber despite being a protein.

Toughness is the amount of kinetic energy a material can withstand without cracking, and strength is the amount of weight it can carry. The amino acid sequence of silk is its primary structure, which is primarily made up of repeated glycine and alanine blocks. There are many leaders in spider silk research who are focusing on the commercialization of genetically engineered spider silk production.

For decades, scientists have attempted to establish methods for producing silk without the use of silkworms or spiders. Many industrial and academic groups have been working on developing spider silk using heterologous hosts such as plants, bacteria, yeast, and even goats. Such attempts have had varying degrees of success, but none have been able to achieve the economic efficiency and scale required to bring a product to market.

Spider silk is a low-cost material that can produce a wide variety of proteins, fabrics, and materials. Spider silk is produced by teams of scientists and leaders in spider silk research who use genetically modified E.coli bacteria. That research is sound, but with production costs as high as $37,500 per kilogram, it's difficult to see how these programs will capture a large portion of the textile market.

For more information on spider silk technology, you can visit https://www.kraiglabs.com/spider-silk/