Three companies have joined forces to develop a new luxury alternative to traditional leather. That sounds ordinary\u2014except the material they\u2019re trying to create is anything but.<\/p>\n
On Friday, April 25, creative agency VML and biotech companies Lab-Grown Leather Ltd. and The Organoid Company announced a \u201cfirst-of-its-kind\u201d partnership. Their goal: to create a cruelty-free, environmentally friendly, high-quality alternative to traditional leather, purportedly using Tyrannosaurus rex DNA. According to a company statement<\/a>, the partnership aims to harness \u201cthe biology of the past to create the luxury materials of the future.\u201d The catch is that they haven\u2019t sufficiently explained exactly how they\u2019re going to do that\u2014and some researchers are very skeptical.<\/p>\n \u201cUsing fossilized T-Rex collagen as a blueprint, the production process will involve engineering cells with synthetic DNA,\u201d according to the statement. \u201cUnlike other bio-based alternatives, Lab-Grown Leather\u2019s \u2018scaffold-free\u2019 approach allows cells to create their own natural structure, resulting in a material that is structurally identical to traditional leather.\u201d<\/p>\n Collagen<\/a> is an abundant protein<\/a> in all animals, and provides structural support<\/a> to muscles, bones, skin, and connective tissues. While researchers have recovered bits of collagen up to 195 million years old<\/a> from dinosaur fossils and other remains, DNA decays much more rapidly<\/a>. That means scientists can\u2019t study dinosaur DNA directly\u2014they have to reconstruct it in other ways.<\/p>\n VML did not respond to a request from Gizmodo for clarification on its process. According to The Times<\/a>, however, the researchers plan to use artificial intelligence to create a replica of T. rex collagen from preserved collagen fragments.<\/p>\n Collagen, like all proteins, is made of amino acids whose sequences are determined by the order of nucleotide bases in DNA\u2014the genetic code<\/a>, or a gene\u2019s \u201cinstructions\u201d for how to make a specific protein.<\/p>\n In an email to Gizmodo, Christina Agapakis\u2014a synthetic biologist with a PhD from Harvard Medical School and founder of the design service company Oscillator\u2014said she believes the researchers might be using the collagen sequence to work backward and reconstruct the DNA that codes for the protein.<\/p>\n Whether or not the researchers take this approach, they plan to insert the collagen-building DNA into cells, which will\u2014supposedly\u2014turn into T. rex skin, according to the Lab-Grown Leather website<\/a>. In tissue engineering, scaffolds<\/a> are materials that provide structural support for cells as the tissue develops. By growing without this structure, the companies seem to suggest that the final material will be exactly like natural leather.<\/p>\n According to Agapakis, researchers have previously tried to recreate leather from cells, including a Victimless Leather<\/a> jacket prototype from 2004. Because \u201cproducing leather at any scale from cells has remained stubbornly difficult,\u201d Agapakis said she is excited to see their results and learn about the process.<\/p>\n \u201cIt would be wrong to call it T. rex leather.\u201d <\/p>\n There\u2019s just one problem. \u201cYou can\u2019t make leather from collagen,\u201d Mary Higby Schweitzer, a molecular paleontologist from North Carolina State University, told Gizmodo. \u201cLeather is tanned from skin,\u201d she added, which mostly consists of \u201cepithelial tissues. These are made of keratin in all terrestrial vertebrates.\u201d<\/p>\n More broadly, Schweitzer, who\u2019s not involved with the project, said that if she was trying to make dinosaur leather, she wouldn\u2019t start with the T. rex, since preserved skin samples of theropods are extremely rare. Specifically, \u201cI wouldn\u2019t start with T. rex collagen, which you\u2019ll notice they didn\u2019t mention how they got that or which T. rex it came from,\u201d Schweitzer said. \u201cThe idea is kind of cool, but I don\u2019t think this press release is very accurate.\u201d To which she added: \u201cIt would be wrong to call it T. rex leather.\u201d<\/p>\n Nevertheless, one could still argue that bio-engineered leather\u2014however it\u2019s made\u2014is better than traditional leather, an industry linked to deforestation and substantial greenhouse gas emissions<\/a>. But consumers with sustainability in mind could simply opt for a thrifted handbag, or one made from recycled material, as Agapakis pointed out.\u00a0<\/p>\n Still, the novelty of such an item appeals to Agapakis. \u201cIf I want something awesome\u2014in the true meaning of the word\u2014I\u2019d go with a lab-grown leather using sequences of collagen from a 68-million-year-old T-Rex tissue sample,\u201d she said, adding that such projects don\u2019t have to be practical to be worthwhile. \u201cI think there\u2019s a lot more to this than \u2018sustainability.’\u201d<\/p>\n The companies plan to start with fashion accessories, then scale up to a luxury flagship product by the end of the year. Down the line, they hope to bring their alternative leather into other sectors, including the automotive industry.<\/p>\n This latest partnership brings a similar project\u2014and controversy\u2014to mind. Last month,\u00a0biotech company Colossal Biosciences claimed to have brought back extinct dire wolves<\/a>. The announcement sparked an intense debate<\/a> about whether the pups are real dire wolves, or just genetically modified gray wolves.<\/p>\n Skepticism is understandably emerging about\u00a0whether VML, Lab-Grown Leather Ltd., and The Organoid Company\u2019s alternative leather will truly be reconstructed T. rex skin, or just dinosaur-inspired lab-grown leather. If anything, both projects reflect a growing trend of companies using science to legitimize ideas that might have been compelling on their own\u2014only to be overshadowed by questionable claims.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three companies have joined forces to develop a new luxury alternative to traditional leather. That sounds ordinary\u2014except the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71530,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[2584,267,35733,70,35734,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-71529","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-fashion","9":"tag-genetics","10":"tag-leather","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-tyrannosaurus-rex","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114444722830076569","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}