AMSilk and Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research Join in the Development of New Spin Process for Spider Silk

09-09-2011: AMSilk and the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research (IAP) join forces in the current development of a novel spin process for making high performance fibers from AMSilk’s spider silk proteins. AMSilk is the first company able to deliver sufficient spider silk material for applications development. AMSilk’s spider silk is inspired by the natural silk from spiders and produced through biotechnology with an industrial production platform. To date, no industrial spinning process has delivered a fiber that can be compared to natural spider silk as found in a spider web. The present collaboration will match AMSilk’s material and biochemical expertise with Fraunhofer’s expertise in developing spin processes for biopolymers. The partners expect to deliver a new process for making artificial spider silk fibers for high tech applications.

“Having Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, one of the world’s most renowned research institutions, as our partner in this exciting project, is a great advantage for AMSilk,” says Axel Leimer, AMSilk CEO. “We fit perfectly together, both in expertise and vision.”

“We are very proud to be involved in the development of a new generation of high performance protein fibers. In a unique way we will combine synthetic spider silk from AMSilk and biopolymer spinning technology from Fraunhofer IAP”, says Prof. Dr. Hans-Peter Fink, the director of Fraunhofer IAP.

The development collaboration will run over at least two years. AMSilk will own commercial rights of the results with certain benefits for Fraunhofer IAP.