Ann Arbor’s Kraig Biocraft Laboratories Inc., which develops and distributes genetically engineered spider silk-based fibers for commercial and military markets, has completed construction of its new spider silk biotech research laboratory in Vietnam.
The new laboratory suite is located within the company’s recombinant spider silk production facility in Quang Nam, Vietnam and consists of 11 separate labs. The new labs are a key piece of the Kraig Biocraft’s spider silk commercialization program and were part of the now-complete renovation efforts at the Prodigy Textiles factory, the company’s wholly owned subsidiary and production arm.
“With these new laboratories and the completion of the Prodigy Textiles factory renovations, we are now ready to start the transition and expansion of our recombinant spider silk production into the new factory,” says Jon Rice, COO of Kraig Biocraft.
“We purposefully designed our laboratories to mirror those of MoST (Vietnam’s Ministry of Science and Technology), where the initial evaluation and approval of our specialized silkworms were finalized, in order to accelerate our commercial ramp up.”
This new laboratory suite was built to support production ramp up and will serve as a testing and quality control facility for the commercialization of the company’s recombinant spider silk technologies.
Moving into the future, Kraig Biocraft says it anticipates utilizing the new laboratories for the development of future innovations in spider silk fibers and products to complement its existing technologies, which now are moving to commercialization.
