Spinox

Case Study on Spinox

The following article, written by Pete Taylor, originally appeared in the Spring/Summer 2004 edition of SEEDA’s “Hub Magazine”.

The Web Master.
For years, he‘s been mimicking spiders and silkworms – but David Knight is no mad professor. Pete Taylor meets the man behind Spinox.

Back in the eighties, among the thousands of anti-nuclear protestors tearing at the fences of Greenham Common was one Professor David Knight, self-confessed “brown bread and sandals eco-freak.” These days he drives straight on to the former US air base and, from a modest laboratory unit, runs one of the South East’s most innovative companies. The buzzword is ‘biomimetic’; or, in other words, mimicking biology.

“Take natural spider silk,” says the professor. “It‘s six times stronger than steel and five times tougher than Kevlar - the material used in bullet-proof vests.” So, I wonder, how come I can break a spider‘s web with my bare hands? “It‘s incredibly fine,” explains Knight, “because that is all that‘s needed to catch a fly. But if the threads of a spider’s web were the thickness of a pencil, you could catch a jumbo jet in it.”

What Spinox has set out to do is create new high-performance superfibres from natural proteins; and, of course, a practical method of spinning them. It’s a concept inspired by the way in which spiders and other insects produce natural silks. The result could be a new kind of futuristic material, with remarkable qualities and endless potential applications. It would also be - and this is the professor’s favourite part - entirely eco-friendly.

Rubber is very extensible; various other materials are very tough. But creating something between the two - both strong and stretchy - is currently achieved by using polymers. The process of spinning artificial fibres involves fusing polymer molecules together, either by dissolving them in aggressive acids or by melting them in extreme heat. But the natural spinning process is far more energy-efficient and less polluting, as it requires neither high temperatures nor toxic solvents.

“It’s a great example of how we can learn from nature’s ingenuity to develop sustainable technologies,” says Knight. “And that‘s what Spinox is all about.”

Although the company was only incorporated in October 2001, its origins go back through decades of university research in Britain and across Europe. Throughout his academic and teaching career - spanning the universities of Cambridge, Copenhagen, Lancaster, Southampton and Oxford - the now 58 year-old Professor Knight has been interested in the qualities and behaviour of structural proteins.

By 1997, he was sufficiently intrigued by the process of liquid crystalline protein spinning, as perfected by insects, that he sent a research student to work under Germany‘s very own ‘Spiderman’ - Professor Fritz Vollrath, a world-leading authority on spider anatomy, spinning ducts and web construction. It was an association which quickly bore fruit, with the two professors publishing a paper on natural spinning processes the following year, the content of which was sufficiently promising to warrant taking out a patent. The pair worked ever more closely on research projects and, in 2001, Vollrath transferred from Aarhus University in Denmark to become a Professor of Zoology at Oxford. At which point, Spinox was founded and Knight moved full-time into the new business.
“We secured our initial finance from the Oxford University Seed Fund and from some German venture capitalists called Technostart. That allowed us to move into our lab at New Greenham Park from June last year. The Newbury location is not only cheaper and more convenient, but also allowed us to recruit skilled lab technicians - who are in huge demand back in Oxford.”

Financial help was also forthcoming via the Newbury Enterprise Hub and as Knight explains, that investment proved essential to taking the programme forward. “We’d had problems in storing extracted protein for more than a couple of days, without it spontaneously forming into a solid rubbery substance. The DTI award allowed us to find a solution to the storage problem, which we patented, and without which we could not have moved forward. We also patented the unwanted rubbery substance - which could ultimately have interesting applications of its own. Many big discoveries have come from ‘failed’ experiments!”

But to take the research forward and develop a commercial viable system for protein spinning, the team now requires a further £5 million over a period of three to five years. “The venture capital business is very competitive. The problem with most investors is that they expect you to go to market within two years. We see plenty of commercial applications, but need at least three years to establish the core technology and determine what our ‘killer’ product will be.”

Undaunted by funding constraints, Spinox continues to prototype its biomimetic device. The current hand-held version spins beautiful protein silk - naturally golden and, at 15 microns, four times thicker than spiders produce. Output, however, is very slow.

“This model is built for demonstration of the principle, rather than optimum speed,” explains Knight. “But even at higher speeds, a single filament extruder won‘t deliver large volumes of material. The kinetics of natural spinning are quite slow. So what we envisage is a multi parallel rig with a reservoir of protein and perhaps hundreds of spinning heads - each of which will be about the size of an inkjet cartridge.”

The other challenge is to find enough natural silk or silk-like protein to feed industrial spinners. Spiders were the obvious starting point - but only 10 microlitres of protein can be extracted from each spinning gland. For a while, the Spinox team thought the solution might lie in developing the world’s largest spider farm, but their attention soon turned to the cocoon-spinning silkworm – whose silk may not be quite as strong, but whose protein production is massively superior. Most productive of all is the caterpillar of the Indian moon moth. Knight feeds his moon moths on rhododendron leaves culled from Greenham Common.

But how does slicing open worms for their glands sit with Knight’s eco-friendly principles? “We don’t like it - but you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. If you have a silk tie, around 60 silkworms have died to produce it. Once they turn into moths and lay their eggs, they only survive a few days in any case. But we’re now working on another source of protein which is plentiful, in fact inexhaustible, and doesn’t involve insects at all. I can‘t say too much - it’s confidential research. But we’re talking about a waste product produced by almost the entire animal kingdom, including human beings. It’s very exciting. It’s a substance rich in the right kind of protein, which cells love to sit on...but I’m saying too much.”

I don’t press him. I know the professor has previously done research for Oxfam on the extraction of protein from sewage sludge, so I don’t want the conversation to get messy and unpleasant. I move on to the really interesting bit...what are the possible applications of this natural superfibre?

“Primarily, we’re looking at the biomedical field. Tissue replacement for example; we could fill in the gaps after surgery with a natural material. We could create ligaments, cartilage and bone - ending the need for metal and plastic hip replacements which wear out after 10 years. And ultrafine natural sutures could be developed, which would be particularly well suited to eye surgery.” Spinox believes biomedicine is the area most likely to deliver a commercial market for its technologies - as it’s a high-innovation field and would also require the new materials in relatively small quantities.

But on the horizon are plenty of non-surgical uses. “Strong protective clothing and sports equipment, for example. Energy-absorbing racket handles perhaps. Car manufacturers are interested in a possible lightweight and extremely compact new fabric for airbags.” With its patents pending, Spinox could be on to a real money-spinner here although Professor Knight insists he’s driven by the science, not by any financial ambitions.

Recognised as a leading authority on silk protein spinning, Knight has been invited to lecture on many occasions. “But I‘m doing less of that now because, frankly, I‘m getting a little deaf. It‘s a bit off-putting when the audience ask questions and I have to get my ear-trumpet out! We are actually looking to bring some younger talent into the business. Besides, at the moment, I‘m executive director, company secretary, accountant, legal specialist and personnel manager, as well as chief scientific officer. We could do with someextra pairs of hands.” And, of course, administrative and management support would allow Knight to focus on his first love: biomimetics.

He proudly shows me his biggest spider - an Australian golden orb-web. “These little organisms are able to do things we can only dream of,” he muses. “Mind you, they’ve taken 400 million years to get there, and we’re trying to imitate that in a couple of years. So I don’t think we’re doing too badly.”

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Revision Number: 1.2 Created: 07/03/2005 11:08:19 Modified: 26/10/2005 10:45:00