BioSteel
Encyclopedia
BioSteel is a trademark
Trademark
A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...

 name for a high-strength based fiber material made of the recombinant spider silk
Spider silk
Spider silk is a protein fiber spun by spiders. Spiders use their silk to make webs or other structures, which function as nets to catch other animals, or as nests or cocoons for protection for their offspring...

-like protein extracted from the milk of transgenic goat
Goat
The domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the Bovidae family and is closely related to the sheep as both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae. There are over three hundred distinct breeds of...

s, made by Nexia Biotechnologies.

The company has created lines of goats that produce recombinant versions of either the MaSpI or MaSpII dragline silk proteins in their milk. When the female goats lactate, the milk, containing the recombinant silk, is harvested and subjected to chromatographic techniques to purify the recombinant silk proteins.

The purified silk proteins are then dried, dissolved using solvents (DOPE formation) and transformed into microfibers using wet-spinning fiber production methodologies. The spun fibers so far have tenacities in the range of 2 - 3 grams/denier and elongation range of 25-45%. The "Biosteel biopolymer" has been transformed into nanofibers and nano-meshes using the electrospinning technique.

Biosteel and other biopolymers are being researched to provide lightweight, strong, and versatile materials for a variety of medical and industrial applications.

Nexia Biotechnologies plans to use the spider silk from the milk of transgenic goats for bulletproof vests and anti-ballistic missile systems.

Unfortunately, no one has been able to
produce it in commercial quantities. Nexia is the only
company which has successfully produced fibres from recombinant
Recombinant
Recombinant may refer to:* A recombinant organism - an organism that contains a different combination of alleles from either of its parents.* Recombinant DNA - a form of artificial DNA* Recombinant virus - a virus formed by recombining genetic material...


spider silk and is currently in the process of developing commercial
quantities of BioSteel using its transgenic goat technology.
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