Skip to main content

Genetically engineered bacteria could be the key to mass-produced spider silk

spider silk nasa
pbombaert/Getty Images

As materials go, spider silk is pretty darn interesting. With its combination of tensile strength, toughness, and ductility, it’s one of nature’s most impressive inventions. It’s incredibly versatile, too. We might be used to spider silk being employed by, well, spiders to trap prey, line nests, or create alarm lines, but there are plenty of applications in the human-sized world, too. These include lightweight bulletproof shields, ultrathin medical sutures, high-strength safety belts, and plenty more.

Recommended Videos

Unfortunately, there’s a problem. Spider silk isn’t easy to farm and, while spiders produce impressive quantities of it relative to their size, that’s still a tiny amount in our terms. It’s not easy to set up spider farms to farm it in bulk either. That’s because some species of spider can turn cannibalistic when they’re kept in groups. As a result, many scientists and other researchers are left positing the amazing potential uses of spider silk, but with few practical ways of putting these into action. Other attempts to try and produce spider silk minus the spiders (using everything from yeast to goats) have been unable to match the spectacular qualities of the real thing. Where’s Spider-Man when you need him?

Fortunately, things may be changing. Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis have demonstrated a new way to create spider silk in the lab — in a way that could prove to be highly reproducible. Their work was presented this week at the American Chemical Society (ACS) Spring 2019 National Meeting & Exposition.

Christopher Bowen

“We created synthetic spider silk by optimizing a synthetic DNA sequence to encode a high molecular weight spider silk protein and engineering bacteria to facilitate its overproduction,” Fuzhong Zhang, lead researcher on the project, told Digital Trends.

It sounds (and is) fairly complex, but it could also be a game changer. The team essentially figured out how to genetically edit bacteria to create super-strong spider silk. This involved dividing spider silk genes into smaller pieces, which were then reassembled after being integrated into a bacterial genome. The resulting microbially produced spider silk matched the properties of natural spider silk in everything from its stronger-than-steel strength to its stretchability. So far, the researchers have been able to use the technique to obtain up to 2 grams of silk per liter of bacterial culture. They hope to increase this yield in the future.

“The next step is to make the bioproduction process more scalable and more economically competitive,” Zhang said.

Should all go according to plan, NASA is hoping that spider silk could turn out to be a useful material to have on missions.

Luke Dormehl
Former Digital Trends Contributor
I'm a UK-based tech writer covering Cool Tech at Digital Trends. I've also written for Fast Company, Wired, the Guardian…
Star Wars legend Ian McDiarmid gets questions about the Emperor’s sex life
Ian McDiarmid as the Emperor in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

This weekend, the Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith 20th anniversary re-release had a much stronger performance than expected with $25 million and a second-place finish behind Sinners. Revenge of the Sith was the culmination of plans by Chancellor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) that led to the fall of the Jedi and his own ascension to emperor. Because McDiarmid's Emperor died in his first appearance -- 1983's Return of the Jedi -- Revenge of the Sith was supposed to be his live-action swan song. However, Palpatine's return in Star Wars: Episode IX -- The Rise of Skywalker left McDiarmid being asked questions about his character's comeback, particularly about his sex life and how he could have a granddaughter.

While speaking with Variety, McDiarmid noted that fans have asked him "slightly embarrassing questions" about Palpatine including "'Does this evil monster ever have sex?'"

Read more
Waymo and Toyota explore personally owned self-driving cars
Front three quarter view of the 2023 Toyota bZ4X.

Waymo and Toyota have announced they’re exploring a strategic collaboration—and one of the most exciting possibilities on the table is bringing fully-automated driving technology to personally owned vehicles.
Alphabet-owned Waymo has made its name with its robotaxi service, the only one currently operating in the U.S. Its vehicles, including Jaguars and Hyundai Ioniq 5s, have logged tens of millions of autonomous miles on the streets of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Austin.
But shifting to personally owned self-driving cars is a much more complex challenge.
While safety regulations are expected to loosen under the Trump administration, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has so far taken a cautious approach to the deployment of fully autonomous vehicles. General Motors-backed Cruise robotaxi was forced to suspend operations in 2023 following a fatal collision.
While the partnership with Toyota is still in the early stages, Waymo says it will initially study how to merge its autonomous systems with the Japanese automaker’s consumer vehicle platforms.
In a recent call with analysts, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai signaled that Waymo is seriously considering expanding beyond ride-hailing fleets and into personal ownership. While nothing is confirmed, the partnership with Toyota adds credibility—and manufacturing muscle—to that vision.
Toyota brings decades of safety innovation to the table, including its widely adopted Toyota Safety Sense technology. Through its software division, Woven by Toyota, the company is also pushing into next-generation vehicle platforms. With Waymo, Toyota is now also looking at how automation can evolve beyond assisted driving and into full autonomy for individual drivers.
This move also turns up the heat on Tesla, which has long promised fully self-driving vehicles for consumers. While Tesla continues to refine its Full Self-Driving (FSD) software, it remains supervised and hasn’t yet delivered on full autonomy. CEO Elon Musk is promising to launch some of its first robotaxis in Austin in June.
When it comes to self-driving cars, Waymo and Tesla are taking very different roads. Tesla aims to deliver affordability and scale with its camera, AI-based software. Waymo, by contrast, uses a more expensive technology relying on pre-mapped roads, sensors, cameras, radar and lidar (a laser-light radar), that regulators have been quicker to trust.

Read more
Uber partners with May Mobility to bring thousands of autonomous vehicles to U.S. streets
uber may mobility av rides partnership

The self-driving race is shifting into high gear, and Uber just added more horsepower. In a new multi-year partnership, Uber and autonomous vehicle (AV) company May Mobility will begin rolling out driverless rides in Arlington, Texas by the end of 2025—with thousands more vehicles planned across the U.S. in the coming years.
Uber has already taken serious steps towards making autonomous ride-hailing a mainstream option. The company already works with Waymo, whose robotaxis are live in multiple cities, and now it’s welcoming May Mobility’s hybrid-electric Toyota Sienna vans to its platform. The vehicles will launch with safety drivers at first but are expected to go fully autonomous as deployments mature.
May Mobility isn’t new to this game. Backed by Toyota, BMW, and other major players, it’s been running AV services in geofenced areas since 2021. Its AI-powered Multi-Policy Decision Making (MPDM) tech allows it to react quickly and safely to unpredictable real-world conditions—something that’s helped it earn trust in city partnerships across the U.S. and Japan.
This expansion into ride-hailing is part of a broader industry trend. Waymo, widely seen as the current AV frontrunner, continues scaling its service in cities like Phoenix and Austin. Tesla, meanwhile, is preparing to launch its first robotaxis in Austin this June, with a small fleet of Model Ys powered by its camera-based Full Self-Driving (FSD) system. While Tesla aims for affordability and scale, Waymo and May are focused on safety-first deployments using sensor-rich systems, including lidar—a tech stack regulators have so far favored.
Beyond ride-hailing, the idea of personally owned self-driving cars is also gaining traction. Waymo and Toyota recently announced they’re exploring how to bring full autonomy to private vehicles, a move that could eventually bring robotaxi tech right into your garage.
With big names like Uber, Tesla, Waymo, and now May Mobility in the mix, the ride-hailing industry is evolving fast—and the road ahead looks increasingly driver-optional.

Read more