Spider and Goats Genes...into Humans?

researchers have already transplanted spider genes into a goat. the goat then produces a milk like substance that is super strong. they are now working on ways to use this trans-genic substance as artificial tendons for humans. in other words you would have a genetically modified goat product with spider genes in it as a piece of your body.

things are getting freaky!!!!

more at link


http://www.edwardwillett.com/Columns/spidersilk.htm


Seeking the Secrets of Spider Silk
by Edward Willett

A few years ago I wrote a column to which, much to my delight, I was able to assign the rather B-movie-ish title "Spider-Goat Clones of Montreal."

The column described how a Montreal company called Nexia Technologies had cloned goats that had been genetically engineered to produce spider-silk proteins in their milk. Nexia retrieved the proteins and used it to make a synthetic form of spider silk called BioSteel. Their hope was to produce bulk spider-silk fibers for use in all kinds of applications, from body armor to medical sutures.

They're still struggling with the project--among other things, the company has recently undergone restructuring, which isn't doing their research efforts any good.

But other researchers are still on the spider-silk case, because the potential uses are enormous. Drag-line spider-silk--the silk spiders dangle on specifically to scare the living daylights out of you when you happen to walk into them--is six times stronger than steel fiber of equal diameter. Just as importantly, it's immensely stretchy. It could be used for extremely thin sutures for eye or nerve surgery, or to make artificial ligaments and tendons, body armor, ropes, fishing nets--even airbags that are less punishing to the people they're protecting.

Nexia was able to create a spider-silk-protein-producing goat because a team of researchers at the University of Wyoming successfully discovered and mapped the genes responsible for spider silk in 1989. Those researchers, led by Randy Lewis, a professor of molecular biology, are undoubtedly the world's leading authorities on spider-silk genes. Since 1989, they've cloned and sequenced the genes from 26 different species of spiders.

The team inserts small segments of spider DNA they hoped contain the silk-producing genes into bacteria, then waits to see if the bacterial colonies produce silk proteins. Unfortunately, while bacteria produce enough silk proteins for research purposes, they don't produce enough for commercial purposes. Hence the Nexia spider-goat clones.