MUNICH/POTSDAM, Germany — September 7, 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.
Posted on September 13, 2011
Source: AMSilk GmbH/B3C newswire
