Silk — a natural protein fibre — has recently emerged as ... In an approach similar to soft-lithography, pouring the silk solution on to a patterned substrate enables conformal replication ...

So Lewis and his team have had to turn to other methods. Lewis: In terms of the spider silk protein, we've got to find a cheap way to make it. Narrator: Randy and his team took the spider silk ...

The fibroin promoter in particular is very strong. "Silkworms can produce 400 mg of silk protein per animal and may be used as an insect factory for the production of many useful proteins," says Mori.