The following is an edited excerpt.
Researchers have genetically engineered silkworms to produce colored fluorescent silks, which are starting to be used in textiles, including in a wedding dress created by Japanese designer Yumi Katsura.
The researchers inserted glowing proteins, borrowed from corals and jellyfish, into the silkworm genome near the gene for the silk protein fibroin. They then raised more than 20,000 transgenic silkworms, which expressed fibroin proteins with the fluorescent molecules attached, and collected their colorful cocoons, according to a paper published earlier this month in Advanced Functional Materials.
Read the full story here: Genetically Modified Fashion
