High-yield plant based manufacturing of bioengineered spider silk (Phytosilk)

The high strength to weight and elasticity properties of spider silk make it of significant interest for the production of advanced fibers for military and civilian applications. Plants may offer the only feasible mechanism to produce quantities of spider silk proteins sufficient to sustain large scale manufacturing of these high performance fibers. Successful implementation of bioengineered spider silks requires appropriate genetic constructs, crop plants that can be successfully transformed with the constructs, and the technology and protocols necessary to produce high yields of the expressed protein. This project proposes to bring together plants transformed with spider dragline silk constructs from the University of California-Riverside with advanced environmental control technologies and protocols developed by Orbital Technologies Corporation to provide a system capable of high yield spider silk protein production.