The identification of factors linked to the potential acceptance of transgenic biopharmaceuticals: an exploratory study.

In this exploratory study, Rogers' diffusion of innovation theory was used to identify which factors are likely to contribute to the potential acceptance of transgenic biopharmaceuticals (TG-Bs). These products are not yet available to the general public. A scale was designed to assess three of five core attributes related to the potential adoption rate of innovations (Rogers 1995), as well as to measure potential acceptance characteristics for biotechnology products.

Spider silk fibers spun from soluble recombinant silk produced in mammalian cells.

Spider silks are protein-based "biopolymer" filaments or threads secreted by specialized epithelial cells as concentrated soluble precursors of highly repetitive primary sequences. Spider dragline silk is a flexible, lightweight fiber of extraordinary strength and toughness comparable to that of synthetic high-performance fibers. We sought to "biomimic" the process of spider silk production by expressing in mammalian cells the dragline silk genes (ADF-3/MaSpII and MaSpI) of two spider species.