Korean researchers pave way for mass production of artificial spider silk

Korean researchers pave way for mass production of artificial spider silk. June. 02, 2015 08:23. enhanced@donga.com.

A team led by KAIST mechanical engineering Professor Yoo Seung-hwa (photo) has developed a way to produce artificial spider silk jointly with research teams from three U.S. colleges including MIT.

Spider silk is stronger than steel and extremely durable that it is a material rival bullet proof fiber "Kevlar." However, spiders don`t make many webs making impossible mass production, which is possible with silkworms. In the science circle, many researches has been done on transplanting spider genes to bacteria, and ways to make spider silk substances other than from spiders. However, there have been repeated trials and errors since accurate conditions to make spider silk substance were yet to be known.

Professor Yoo and his team solved this problem through a computer modeling technique. By searching for conditions on the computer, they were able to reduce bacteria gene manipulation time to within a week from several months. Yoo said, "More experiments will lead to mass production of strong spider silk." The research result was issued on science journal Nature Communications on its May 28 edition.