Wild-type bacterial silk: a next-gen biomaterial beyond silkworm and spider silks
It all began as an attempt to purify water, when I isolated a Bacillus strain from an oil well at a depth of 1,000 meters. This bacterium showed an exceptional ability to produce a bio-polymer that purifies water, but the surprise was in its composition: a striking density of alanine acid — the core building block of silkworm silk. That’s where the bold hypothesis emerged:
Could a wild bacterium produce silk?
I formed a multidisciplinary research team to test this possibility using every tool of structural and spectroscopic analysis. We managed to spin the material into nanofibers and image it with an electron microscope. Despite the excitement of the results, we chose scientific caution, describing the material as a "silk-like protein" until the evidence was complete.
In 2018, we published the world’s first paper proving that a natural bacterium can produce a silk-like material — breaking the monopoly of spiders and silkworms in this field and opening the door to scalable bio-manufacturing. Later, our experiments showed that the material wasn’t just structurally unique but also biologically functional: anti-cancer, anti-bacterial, even anti-viral — making it more than just a substitute for traditional silk.
In 2025, I published (today’s paper) a comprehensive scientific review that establishes this material as a new kind of silk in its own right, similar to silkworm and spider silk but not identical. The review relied on precise structural analyses, spectral fingerprints, thermal behavior, and biological activity. It also laid out a practical roadmap to help researchers and manufacturers isolate this new type of microbe and harness it for effective industrial production.
The story of “bacterial silk” proves that extraordinary biological resources can be discovered in unexpected places, and that microbial pathways open new doors to clean, programmable, genetically tunable manufacturing — meeting medical, environmental, and agricultural needs in ways never before possible.
This is not just a scientific discovery —
It’s a call to reimagine the limits of what’s possible in the world of biomaterials.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s44316-025-00032-3
Prof. Dr. Desouky Ahmed Mohamed Abd-El-Haleem is a leading expert in environmental biotechnology, with a PhD from Humboldt University Berlin. His research focuses on using advanced molecular biology techniques for wastewater treatment, pollution monitoring, and pathogen detection. He has earned six patents from the Egyptian Patent Office and collaborated internationally with research teams in Germany, the U.S., Qatar, and Egypt.
Dr. Abd-El-Haleem has served as a research professor and dean at the Institute of Genetic Engineering, City of Scientific Research and Technological Applications in Alexandria, Egypt, and has supervised numerous master's and doctoral students. His expertise is widely recognized, and he has received prestigious awards, including Egypt's State Prizes in Encouragement, Excellence, and Merit, as well as the Abdulhamid Shoman Prize in Biological and Environmental Sciences.
Dr. Abd-El-Haleem is also an author of influential books like Environmental Biotechnology, Friendly Plastics, and Water Miracle, and has contributed to scientific journals and public magazines. His work continues to inspire and drive advancements in environmental biotechnology across the Arab world.
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Biotechnology for Sustainable Materials
Biotechnology for Sustainable Materials is an open access, peer-reviewed journal featuring all aspects of biotechnology aimed at the production of sustainable and renewable materials
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