BioSteel was a

trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from othe ...

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

spider silk Spider silk is a protein fibre spun by spiders. Spiders use their silk to make webs or other structures, which function as sticky nets to catch other animals, or as nests or cocoons to protect their offspring, or to wrap up prey. They can ...

-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 domesticated species of goat-antelope typically 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 a ...

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 land-grant research university in Laramie, Wyoming. It was founded in March 1886, four years before the territory was admitted as the 44th state, and opened in September 1887. The University of Wyoming ...

and

Utah State University Utah State University (USU or Utah State) is a public land-grant research university in Logan, Utah. It is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. With nearly 20,000 students living on or near campus, USU is Utah ...

. 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, or banana spider (a name shared with several others), is an orb-weaving spider species which inhabits forests ...

'', 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 In chemical analysis, chromatography is a laboratory technique for the separation of a mixture into its components. The mixture is dissolved in a fluid solvent (gas or liquid) called the ''mobile phase'', which carries it through a system (a ...

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" had been transformed into

nanofibers Nanofibers are fibers with diameters in the 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 of natural polyme ...

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, electric force to draw charged threads of polymer solutions or polymer melts up to fiber diameters in the order of some hundred nanometers. Electrospinning shares characterist ...

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 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 (french: Musée de l'agriculture et de l'alimentation du Canada) is a national agricultural museum in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Occupying several buildings within the Central Experimental Farm, the museum ope ...

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 Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...

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