https://gregladen.com/blog/2007/11/26/frankensteins-spider-goat-teac/ Mon, 26 Nov 2007 15:21:49 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.8 https://gregladen.com/blog/2007/11/26/frankensteins-spider-goat-teac/#comment-918 Mon, 26 Nov 2007 15:21:49 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2007/11/26/frankensteins-spider-goat-teac/#comment-918 The goat silk venture seems to have been a failure, Nexia was able to have goats produce the protein in their milk, but was unable to make it into a commercially usable fiber.

]]> https://gregladen.com/blog/2007/11/26/frankensteins-spider-goat-teac/#comment-917 Mon, 26 Nov 2007 12:58:52 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2007/11/26/frankensteins-spider-goat-teac/#comment-917 I heard about this ages ago and have yet to hear anything else since. I can’t help but wonder if it didn’t really pan out. I’m willing to bet that the way the silk is dispensed is also crucial to it’s physical properties. Not to mention that spiders tend to pull down their webs nightly… so I can’t imagine they are made to last too horribly long. Also, are we sure that it’s just one gene that makes this particular silk?I wonder, why goats? Why not just modify silk worms to produce spider silk? Why not skip the goats and just farm it from bacteria? Seems rather… inefficient to me.

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