BioSteel was a

trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a form of intellectual property that consists of a word, phrase, symbol, design, or a combination that identifies a Good (economics and accounting), product or Service (economics), service f ...

name for a high-strength fiber-based material made of the recombinant

spider silk Spider silk is a protein fibre or silk spun by spiders. Spiders use silk to make webs or other structures that function as adhesive traps to catch prey, to entangle and restrain prey before biting, to transmit tactile information, or as nest ...

-like protein extracted from the milk of

transgenic A transgene is a gene that has been transferred naturally, or by any of a number of genetic engineering techniques, from one organism to another. The introduction of a transgene, in a process known as transgenesis, has the potential to change the ...

goat The goat or domestic goat (''Capra hircus'') is a species of Caprinae, goat-antelope that is mostly kept as livestock. It was domesticated from the wild goat (''C. aegagrus'') of Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the ...

s, made by defunct Montreal-based company Nexia Biotechnologies, and later by the Randy Lewis lab of the

University of Wyoming The University of Wyoming (UW) is a Public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Laramie, Wyoming, United States. It was founded in March 1886, four years before the territory was admitted as the 44th state, ...

and

Utah State University Utah State University (USU or Utah State) is a public university, public land grant colleges, land-grant research university with its main campus in Logan, Utah, United States. Founded in 1888 under the Morrill Land-Grant Acts as Utah's federal ...

. It is reportedly 7-10 times as strong as steel if compared for the same weight, and can stretch up to 20 times its unaltered size without losing its strength properties. It also has very high resistance to extreme temperatures, not losing any of its properties within . The company had created lines of goats to produce recombinant versions of two

spidroin Spidroins are the main proteins in spider silk. Different types of spider silk contain different spidroins, all of which are members of a single protein family. The most-researched type of spidroins are the major ampullate silk proteins (MaS ...

s from ''

Nephila clavipes ''Trichonephila clavipes'' (formerly known as ''Nephila clavipes''), commonly known as the golden silk orb-weaver, golden silk spider, golden orb weaver spider or colloquially banana spider (a name shared with several others), is an orb-weaving ...

'', the golden orb weaver, MaSp1 and MaSp2 When the female goats lactate, the milk, containing the recombinant DNA silk, was to be harvested and subjected to chromatographic techniques to purify the recombinant silk proteins. The purified silk proteins could be dried, dissolved using solvents (DOPE formation) and transformed into microfibers using wet-spinning fiber production methods. The spun fibers were reported to have tenacities in the range of 2 - 3 grams/denier and elongation range of 25-45%. The "Biosteel

biopolymer Biopolymers are natural polymers produced by the cells of living organisms. Like other polymers, biopolymers consist of monomeric units that are covalently bonded in chains to form larger molecules. There are three main classes of biopolymers, ...

" had been transformed into

nanofibers Nanofibers are fibers with diameters in the Nanometre, nanometer range (typically, between 1 nm and 1 μm). Nanofibers can be generated from different polymers and hence have different physical properties and application potentials. Examples ...

and

nanomesh The nanomesh is an inorganic nanostructured two-dimensional material, similar to graphene. It was discovered in 2003 at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. It consists of a single layer of boron (B) and nitrogen (N) atoms, which forms by self ...

es using the

electrospinning Electrospinning is a fiber production method that uses Electrostatics, electrical force (based on electrohydrodynamic principles) to draw charged threads of polymer solutions for producing nanofibers with diameters ranging from nanometers to mi ...

technique. Nexia is the only company that has successfully produced fibers from spider silk expressed in goat's milk. The Lewis lab has produced fibers from recombinant spider silk protein and synthetic spider silk proteins and genetic chimeras produced in both recombinant

E. coli ''Escherichia coli'' ( )Wells, J. C. (2000) Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. Harlow ngland Pearson Education Ltd. is a gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, rod-shaped, coliform bacterium of the genus ''Escherichia'' that is commonly foun ...

and the milk of recombinant goats, however, no one has been able to produce the silk in commercial quantities thus far. The company was founded in 1993 by Dr. Jeffrey Turner and Paul Ballard and was sold in 2005 to Pharmathene. In 2009, two transgenic goats were sold to the

Canada Agriculture Museum The Canada Agriculture and Food Museum () is a national agricultural museum in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Occupying several buildings within the Central Experimental Farm, the museum operates as a "working farm", and provides public programs and e ...

after Nexia Biotechnologies went bankrupt. Research has since continued with the help of Randy Lewis, a professor formerly at the University of Wyoming and now at

. He was also able to successfully breed "spider goats" in order to create artificial silk. As of 2012, there are about 30 of the goats at a university-run farm. The

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest displacement, at 4.5 million tons in 2021. It has the world's largest aircraft ...

has plans to turn this silk into a tool for stopping vessels by entangling their propellers. Potential applications of artificial spider silk biopolymers include using it for the coating of implants and medical products as well as for artificial ligaments and tendons, due to its elastic tendencies and also since it is a natural product which will synthesize well with the body. Other potential uses for artificial silk biopolymers include personal care products and textiles.

References

{{reflist Biotechnology products Genetically modified organisms