A new innovative genetically engineered spider silk from goat hairs has been developed and can be used to help surgeons heal large wounds and create artificial tendons and ligaments. Spider silk is one of the strongest fibers known and five times stronger than steel. Developers have gained worldwide attention recently when they found a commercially viable way to manufacture silk fibers using goats and silkworms that had spider genes inserted into their makeup.

An artist named Jalila Essaidi found this creation fascinating and conducted an experiment weaving a lattice of human skin cells and silk that was capable of stopping bullets fired at reduced speeds, using a European genetics-in-art grant to fund her project at the Designers & Artists 4 Genomics Awards.

Using a high-speed camera, she showed a bullet fired at a reduced speed piercing the skin woven with an ordinary worm’s silk, but when tested with the genetically engineered worm’s silk grafted between the epidermis and dermis, the skin didn’t break. Neither was able to repel a bullet fired at normal speed from a .22 caliber rifle.

The creator of the silk, Randy Lewis commented:

“We were more than a little surprised that the final skin kept the bullet from going in there. It still ended up 2 inches into the torso, so it would not have saved your life. But without a doubt the most exciting part for us is the fact that they were able to recreate the skin on top of our fibers. It’s something we haven’t done. Nobody has worked in that area.”

Now bulletproof vests already exist, but being able to grow cells and use the material to replace large amounts of human skin could be significant for surgeons trying to cover large wounds, or treat people with severe burns.

The next step is to generate more material to test what cells will grow on it, made easier with the “transgenic” silk worms and milk from goat spiders.

Lewis continues:

“We know some skin cells will grow (on our fibers), but can we get cells that make ligaments and tendons grow. Nothing is as strong as the natural fiber yet, but we are working on solving that problem.”

He also said it may be easier to use the genetically engineered silk to make materials better than actual ligaments or tendons, and has just started breeding goats for the next round of milking in January. He has about three dozen of the genetically engineered goats. He extracts proteins from the special milk then spins them in a way that replicates the spider’s method, resulting in a strong, light-weight fiber.

Essaidi concludes:

“With this work I want to show that safety in its broadest sense is a relative concept, and hence the term bulletproof. The work did stop some partially slowed bullets but not the one at full speed. But even with the skin pierced by the bullet the experiment is still a success. It leads to the conversation about how which form of safety would benefit society.”

Written by Sy Kraft