SILK MERCHANTS: With the help of inserted spider genes, these newly hatched transgenic silkworms can spin silk that is closer to that spun by arachnids.IMAGE COURTESY OF KRAIG BIOCRAFT LABORATORIES
In Jon Rice’s office is a small incubator full of tiny insect eggs—one of many such incubators kept at Kraig Biocraft Laboratories (KBL), the Michigan-based polymer development company where Rice is chief operations officer. From these eggs will hatch tiny silkworms, caterpillars of the domesticated silk moth Bombyx mori, which will then set to chomping down on mulberry leaves and preparing themselves for the demanding task of spinning silk cocoons to pupate in just a few weeks later.
But these are no ordinary silkworms, a fact you might notice “if you know what you’re looking for,” Rice says. For a start, “the eyes and the feet of our silkworms glow, if you look at them under the right UV filter,” he explains. And the cocoons ...
