Recently, AMSilk, the world's leading supplier of advanced materials for spider silk proteins, announced a partnership with bioproduction company 21st.BIO aimed at taking AMSilk's silk protein production scale to unprecedented heights.
As part of the collaboration, 21st.BIO has successfully developed a new protein production strain using highly specialized and sophisticated fermentation technology. This strain ensures efficient extracellular expression of silk proteins, resulting in unprecedented levels of productivity and reduced production costs.
Praised for its unique strength and flexibility, spider silk has been hailed as the gold standard of materials for the bio-industry.AMSilk's spider silk-based proteins are fully biodegradable and biocompatible, based on renewable plant-based raw materials, and do not contain any substances of animal origin. Compared to other protein fibers, they reduce carbon dioxide greenhouse gas emissions by up to 90% and land and water use by more than 90%. Thanks to their excellent properties, these materials have a wide range of applications in the textile, home care, biomedical and automotive industries, among others.
Compared to other protein fibers, they reduce carbon dioxide greenhouse gas emissions by up to 90% and land and water use by more than 90%. Thanks to their excellent properties, these materials have a wide range of applications in the textile, home care, biomedical and automotive industries, among others.
For its part, 21st.BIO benefits from the industry's most advanced precision fermentation technology platform, with production strains that have been optimized and refined over 40 years and are now used in dozens of products on the market. Working closely with AMSilk, 21st.BIO scientists have successfully developed and optimized new production strains, fermentations and downstream processes to support large-scale production and significantly reduce unit costs. This will enable AMSilk to further expand its product portfolio across different types of fibers and proteins to meet a wider range of mid-market needs.
Gudrun Vogtentanz, AMSilk's Chief Scientific Officer, said, "Through our collaboration with 21st.BIO, we now have access to more efficient production strains, which is important for us to improve feedstock efficiency and sustainability. Increasing the production scale from kilograms to tons marks a new step in AMSilk's technology. The partnership with 21st.BIO is critical to accelerating AMSilk's market rollout in the current expansion phase."
Thomas Schmidt, CEO of 21st.BIO, added: "We founded 21st.BIO to help companies move from lab-scale ideas to the industrial biotech production stage in a timely and low-risk manner. Despite the challenges of utilizing spider silk proteins, AMSilk is the first company to successfully achieve this goal and bring spider silk proteins into large-scale production. The world needs innovators and industry pioneers like AMSilk, and it is our mission to help them succeed."
