This Partnerships for Innovation: Building Innovation Capacity project from Utah State University (USU) is designed to move the unique properties of spider silk from the laboratory to the marketplace. Spider silks exhibit excellent strength and toughness simultaneously, a feat unachievable in most synthetic structural materials, and it has a thermal conductivity equivalent to copper. At USU, recombinant silks closely mimicking natural spider silk sequences have been developed and synthesized. The discovery and early development of spider silk?s properties has led to the current point of joint technology-oriented research with business and industry partners. Three industry partners and one non-profit collaborator all have potential of developing spider silk products. This project will produce bio-inspired fibers with materials properties specifically appropriate for each of the partnering companies? possible product prototypes. This research will combine expertise and resources to make it possible to move spider silk technology toward products in three distinct areas: 1) biomedical applications, in particular micro-fine sutures for eye and nerve surgery; 2) composite materials from synthetic spider silk fibers; and 3) media for microbial fermentation and synthetic feed for silkworms designed to augment typical materials for production of the unique proteins. In addition, the unique thermal transfer properties of spider silk will be explored to assess its use in a variety of applications. The research will focus on which synthetic spider silks will be the best for the different possible uses, how to scale-up production of those spider silk proteins to levels that can be commercialized, and how to incorporate these fibers into the companies? prospective prototypes.
The broader impacts of the research lie in the potential of the partnership to develop the products and techniques described above that will open up new markets due to the unique properties of these materials, which cannot currently be matched by any other materials. The new products envisioned would substantially increase the revenue for the partner companies, open up new product lines, and likely lead to increased jobs for them and downstream businesses. The companies will directly gain new technical skills such as electrospinning, fiber testing, methods for handling unique fibers, and testing methods for new feed media. In return, the Lewis Laboratory at USU will gain experience in composite material design and manufacture, 3D printing, rapid prototyping techniques, and methods for media analyses. Both the companies and the USU laboratory will gain access to unique instrumentation aiding both academe and industry in the future development of products from these unique materials. Also, importantly the development of media and diets to improve the production of the silk fibers will be crucial for production to meet expected demand. These partnerships can also lead to the use of spider silk in additional products in other companies. In addition to the research scientists participating in this project, students involved in this project will also gain valuable experience working with industry partners and with company scientists not only in the research, but also in the planning and design phases. Students will also have opportunities to present on their research and work with the PI in outreach efforts to give several presentations and tours on spiders and spider silk to K-12 students. The project will also provide hands-on workshops for the Engineering State conference for high school students with a particular goal of recruiting women and Hispanic students. This research area has continued to produce enthusiastic media attention for both the PI?s research and sponsors in the U.S. and internationally from multiple television networks.
Partners at the inception of the project are Utah State University (Synthetic Bioproducts Institute and United Science Technology Advanced Research(USTAR) and three primary small technology businesses: Caisson Laboratories, Inc.(Logan, UT); Iso Nano International, LLC (San Diego, CA); Zigg Design, LLC(Logan, UT; and a non-profit collaborator, Space Dynamics Laboratory(Logan, UT).
