Engineered Silk: When Synthetic Biology Meets Fashion
The amazing characteristics of spider silk, which is lighter and more flexible than air and stronger than steel, have long piqued the interest of scientists. A significant development in the creation of synthetic spider silk has now been made by Fuzhong Zhang, a professor of energy, environmental, and chemical engineering at the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, opening the door for a new era of environmentally friendly clothing manufacturing. Zhang has been attempting to boost the output of silk threads made from microbes while keeping their desirable qualities of increased strength and toughness since developing recombinant spider silk in 2018 using bacteria. In the fashion industry, where the production of an estimated 100 billion garments and 92 million tonnes of waste annually has a significant negative impact on the environment, higher yields will be essential if synthetic silk is to be used in everyday applications. Revolutionizing the ...