Investing in Hybrid Spider Silk Material

Written By Brian Hicks

Posted October 15, 2014

An unmasked Spider Man stands on the front of a speeding subway train heading for the end of the tracks. If it doesn’t somehow stop, everyone on board will be flung to the street below.

First, he tries to act like a human brake, putting his feet down into the rapidly passing ties. It just breaks the ties.

Then, he uses his trademark webs to create a sort of biological bungee to slow the train.

After a first failed attempt that rips the facades off of a number of buildings, he casts out 10 or so webs, and the train is eventually slowed.

As unrealistic as superhero movies are, and as ridiculous as this particular scene from 2004’s Spider Man 2 is, would you believe it’s actually possible to stop a train with spider webs?

Spider silk is, by weight, five times stronger than steel and three times tougher than Kevlar, DuPont’s (NYSE: DD) bulletproof material.

The webs Spider Man cast created the biological equivalent of a suspension bridge, and it’s entirely possible that yes, that train would have stopped.

Spider silk is one of the toughest materials known to man, and it has long been a “holy grail” for materials scientists who are looking for the lightest and strongest substance for protective gear.

There are a number of companies working toward bringing commercial-grade spider silk to the world, and lately, the competition has heated up.

The Competition

The problem is there’s no good way to harvest spider silk. The tiny creatures can’t exactly be farmed and “unstrung” of their silk in any large quantity.

That’s why scientists at the University of Wyoming created spidergoats.

These goats were genetically crossbred with spiders so that they can create the protein spiders use to spin “dragline” silk.

But they won’t be shooting webs everywhere like Spider Man. It’s much more boring than that.

A certain percentage of these goats have the gene to create the dragline protein, and it is present in their milk. Their milk is then processed, and the spider silk protein is harvested. The reason this is so important is that it can be done in much greater volumes than ever before.

Other researchers are looking to create their own solutions.

For the last five years, a Charlotte, North Carolina-based company named EntoGenetics has been claiming it has the ability to take the genes that allow spiders to spin webs and implant them into silkworms so that the spider silk can be harvested.

The problem so far is that EntoGenetics has attempted to patent this gene combination technique since 2009, but it hasn’t gone through yet. The patent application was rejected most recently in April 2014.

However, EntoGenetics’ main competitor is attempting to do the same thing — but it’s publicly traded in penny territory, and it doesn’t have the patent problems.

Kraig Biocraft Laboratories (OTC: KBLB) is also genetically engineering spiders and silkworms, but it’s working with the University of Wyoming, the scientists who successfully created the spidergoats.

According to Kraig, it has exclusive rights to use five patents for spider gene sequencing held by the University of Wyoming.

“The University of Wyoming is a leader in spider silk research, and the University of Wyoming Foundation is a Kraig shareholder,” says the fine print on Kraig Biocraft’s website.

It is already producing hybrid silkworm/spider silk that it calls MonsterSilk, and it recently reached full production capacity at its facility. Right now, the company is ramping up production and is looking to launch a large-scale production facility in Vietnam.

“Vietnam has an excellent infrastructure in place for silkworms, as well as idle capacity and skilled, underutilized people; and we would be able to move very quickly to production,” Kraig Labs founder and CEO Kim K. Thompson recently told Textile World.

The company only created its first MonsterSilk textile four months ago — a type of knitted gloves that were manufactured by Warwick Mills.

microscopic close up of monstersilk

Microscopic view of Kraig’s hybrid silk

This small-scale trial was done to see if the material could be compatible with the existing yarn processing and textile formation techniques.

Apparently it was something of a success for the company. The next step toward commercialization looks like it is close at hand.

So in this burgeoning field of genetically modified biofabrics, the University of Wyoming has been the linchpin, and its patents are the key to widespread manufacture.

Good Investing,

  Tim Conneally Sig

Tim Conneally

follow basic @TimConneally on Twitter

For the last seven years, Tim Conneally has covered the world of mobile and wireless technology, enterprise software, network hardware, and next generation consumer technology. Tim has previously written for long-running software news outlet Betanews and for financial media powerhouse Forbes.

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