Researchers from the Centre for Biomedical Technology at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid were involved in this research project. Today they report that they can produce kilometre long threads that for the first time resemble real spider silk. Now, a team of researchers has, step by step, developed a method that works. Being able to produce artificial spider silk has long been a dream of many scientists, but all attempts have until now involved harsh chemicals and have resulted in fibers of limited use. Now, scientists have created a synthetic spider silk with many of the same properties as its wild counterpart, and they can produce it on a large scale overcoming two limitations that have stymied past research in the area. Until now, this has not been possible because of difficulties to obtain water soluble spider silk proteins from bacteria and other production systems, and therefore strong solvents have been used in spinning processes. A biomimetic spinning process (that mimics nature) is probably the best way to manufacture fibers that resemble real spider silk. They experiment even with alfalfa to produce multiple different versions of synthetic spider and spider-silkworm silks. Some small firms are trying to use not just genetically engineered bacteria, goats or transgenic silkworms. In 2015, researchers reported in the journal Biomaterials that they had used spidroins produced by transgenic goats to form scaffolding for growing brain cells. For instance, in 2010 the National Science Foundation funded a project to genetically engineer goats to produce spider silk in their milk, while other projects focused on mass-producing spider silk proteins, called spidroins, in yeast, bacteria and insect cells. The hunt for a natural mimic to spider silk is nothing new.
Therefore, any large scale production must involve the use of artificial silk proteins and spinning processes. However, spiders are difficult to keep in captivity and they spin small amounts of silk. The material, which is five times stronger than steel, could be used in products from bulletproof vests to medical implants. Ляхнович SPINNING SPIDER SILK IS NOW POSSIBLE 3 Spider silk is an attractive material it is well tolerated when implanted in tissues, it is lightweight but stronger than steel, and it is also biodegradable. Пушкина» Educational Establishment Brest State University named after A.S.