 In 2016, a study from the University of Nottingham was published describing the first and only synthetic spider silk that is functionally identical to naturally spun spider silk.Using nonnatural methionine analog L-azidohomoalanine (L-Aha) and genetically modified E-Coli cells, they were able to produce the self-assembling proteins under the conditions needed to create the filament.These conditions were researched years earlier by J. Johansson and coworkers studying the production of spider silk proteins.