This initiative, now well underway, represents the largest and most complex silkworm gene-engineering project ever undertaken globally. The program builds upon years of proprietary research and ...

Take a walk through a forest, and you’re bound to come upon a spider web stretching from one tree branch to the next. The intricacy of the web can leave a person in awe, but what is even more ...

Understanding how the stretching process strengthens spider silk is a key part of helping design stronger, biodegradable, silk-inspired materials for various applications. When spiders spin their webs ...

Silk proteins generated by bacteria engineered to convert polyethylene into this multipurpose material. Credit: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Move over Spider-Man: Researchers at Rensselaer ...

Jan. 31 -- It may be impossible to craft a silk purse from a sow's ear. But one day, it may be possible to fashion a silk bulletproof vest from, of all things, goat's milk. For decades, scientists ...

While spider silk proteins are something you can make in your garage, making useful drag line fibers has proved a daunting challenge. Now, a team of scientists from Japan and Hong Kong are closer to ...

For years, the CRISPR-Cas9 genome technology has been reshaping genetic engineering, a precision tool to transform everything from agriculture to medicine. With its incredible efficiency, this ...

Silkworms have been genetically engineered with CRISPR to produce pure spider silk for the first time. The worms could offer a scalable way to create things like surgical thread or bulletproof vests ...

Researchers have, for the first time ever, used CRISPR gene editing on spiders. While the genetically-modified critters lack the ability to give you spidey senses, they do spin glowing silk. In a ...

Continuing the scientific theme of adding fluorescent proteins to everything that moves, this time spiders found themselves at the pointy end of the CRISPR-Cas9 injection needle. In a study by ...