Another company, Bolt Threads [1] just raised significant money [2] to produce spider silk as well. Started by a few molecular biologists, they too took it from a protein sequence, into yeast, purified the protein in bulk, spun it into thread, then wove it into a fabric. Which means, theoretically they can tweak the protein sequence to produce an entirely new fabric in a matter of a few weeks. Once you get a woven protein scaffold into a fabric, systematically modifying the scaffold further is relatively easy for a protein compared with the sugars and polymers we use currently.
It's hard to see unless you look closely, but this is the beginning of biological nanotechnology. These are some of the very first deliberately designed biological molecules to make it into a non-pharmaceutical market. Technologically, the silks in these fabrics are made of designed components an order of magnitude smaller than Intel's best transistors. And (under biological conditions) are significantly more functionally versatile.
I can't find any information on the protein they're using - do you know which it is?
From a proteonomics perspective it seems interesting, but spider silk is several different proteins polymerized into amorphous semi-elastic regions, so I'm skeptical about their 'spinning' process.
Processes using yeast to produce simple proteins (like hypoallergenic insulin) have been around since the 1980s, so I'm curious about how (or if) they solved the protein folding problem and stats on how their silk compares to natural silk.
Wonderful comment, however I disagree with the "hard to see" aspect... I'm so excited about this tech that when reading the article I was daydreaming of dropping everything and just showing up on the doorstep of a company like spiber and saying "I am not leaving until you give me a job"
This is awesome tech and the obvious future. So I don't think it is hard to see at all...
Whether or not it's constructed from protein is irrelevant to whether or not it can be eaten. There are many proteins that can be eaten but are not (or poorly) digestible or convey no meaningful nutritious benefit. And for that matter, one can "eat" anything.
The germane question here is "does this have nutritional value"?; the answer is almost certainly "no".
It's hard to see unless you look closely, but this is the beginning of biological nanotechnology. These are some of the very first deliberately designed biological molecules to make it into a non-pharmaceutical market. Technologically, the silks in these fabrics are made of designed components an order of magnitude smaller than Intel's best transistors. And (under biological conditions) are significantly more functionally versatile.
[1] https://boltthreads.com/ [2] http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/04/spiderpants/