3DBT: Leather shoes ‘grown in the lab’ by biotech firm just five years away
The 3D Bio-Tissues company are on the cusp of revolutionizing food, fashion and healthcare markets with its patent-protected IP which has already created cruelty-free meat, human corneas and now skin that will eventually be used by manufacturers to create leather.
COREENA FORD: Biotech business 3D Bio-Tissues say we are just a few years away from lab-grown leather goods after creating animal ‘skin’ without the need for animals. Scientific engineers at the Newcastle company are on the cusp of revolutionising food, fashion and healthcare markets with its patent-protected IP which has already created cruelty-free meat, human corneas and now skin that will eventually be used by manufacturers to create leather. It has announced that it has entered into a contract with a leather company to test and develop lab-grown animal skin for leather production, although the terms of the contract are confidential at present…
Dr Che Connon, chief executive said: “It works in the same way that leather works, it’s made from the same thing – skin. The animal cells are used at the very beginning and a media to grow those cells. There’s a couple of tricks we’ve been developing over the years. One is to direct those cells, give them some direction they respond to and they arrange themselves in a skin-like way and importantly, make all the skin-like molecules. Once they’ve arranged themselves the result is skin… We’ve developed a robust supplement that does two things – accelerates that process, and importantly removes the need for the use of animal serum which is a byproduct of the agricultural processes. We’ve taken that out with this product called CityMix.”
Mr Connon said it would take around five years to scale up the technology before we see large, leather products come to the market, but it is already in talks with companies keen to make ethical goods from its pioneering technology. “At the moment we’re generating 10 by 10cm squared tissues, just over 1mm thick. It’s translucent, it looks like skin – principally it is skin and it feels like skin. What we are generating is the raw material and others can then use their own skills and expertise and machinery to turn it into leather”… 3DBT has entered into direct sales agreements with two lab-grown meat companies and one biotech company and while inItial sales and revenues are expected to be relatively small at this early stage, the firm said it marked an important milestone. SOURCE…
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