Update - Success in the Lab!
The announcement Kraig made early last week was highly significant. The release used quite a few terms that probably confuse the vast majority of small-cap investors - after all, we are not genetic scientists are we? Let me take a moment to explain what was announced and why it’s important.
The researchers have been working to inject the specific spider DNA that is responsible for silk production into silkworms so that the silkworms produce spider silk. They have replicated this DNA and combined it with DNA that causes fluorescence. The combined DNA creates somewhat of a “suitcase” of DNA, which contains both types of DNA - spider silk DNA and the DNA that causes fluorescence. This “suitcase” of DNA is then injected into silkworms eggs. Oftentimes the DNA within the “suitcase” will not make its way into the DNA of the silkworm, but sometimes it does. Using this method it’s easy to determine if the new DNA makes it into the silkworm because if it does the silkworm will glow with florescence.
Over the past couple months the research team had significantly increased the number of attempts to insert these DNA “suitcases” into silkworm eggs. A couple of weeks ago, they achieved success, noticing the offspring were glowing. This means that the silkworms are in fact transgenic and that the inserted DNA was taken up by the insects - effectively, creating a new life form. This was a significant achievement.
The next step will be to determine if the new transgenic silkworms are germline stable – meaning, will they pass the new DNA to the next generation. If it is passed to the next generation the next step will be to test the resulting silk produced by the silkworms to determine its properties. This is a process that only takes a couple of weeks, so depending on the outcome we could have major news pending.
Stay tuned here - we will keep you updated as developments occur.
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