One of the most difficult natural fibers to acquire is spider silk, because it's very difficult to rear spiders as they have this tendency to cannibalize each other. So being able to produce spider silk in a large scale at a low cost would be extremely arduous, time-consuming, and not to mention would require a huge investment. We're not even talking about the technical aspects of harvesting the silk and processing it to turn it into usable fiber. So far, the only natural animal fiber that we have been able to harvest and use is silk worm fiber. But, the tensile strength, durability, and ductility of spider silk makes it highly desirable.
Now, researchers from China were able to genetically modify silkworms so that they can produce spider silk. They used CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology to insert spider silk protein genes into the silkworms as well as other modifications so that the genes can be adapted into the silkworms' internal system and allow it to properly produce the fiber. This may be a great feat in and of itself, but the researchers are hopeful that this is just a stepping stone and their research can be further built upon toward producing spider silk from both natural and engineered amino acids.
(Image credit: George Rosema/Unsplash)