UK biotech start-up unveils lab-grown leather
UK-based biotech start-up 3D Bio-Tissues (3DBT), powered by BSF Enterprise, has unveiled a lab-grown leather sample at the Future Fabrics Expo in London designed to meet the increasing demand for environmentally and animal-conscious alternative leather products.
The bio-engineered samples are structurally and genetically identical to traditional leather. However, unlike farm-based leather, lab-grown leather is made without harming any animals but can still be tanned using either traditional leather production processes or modern ecologically sensitive approaches, resulting in a material as diverse in colour and appearance as classic leather.
The ‘tissue-engineered skin’ has been grown solely from immortalised cells, isolated and collected from an adult female horse following a strict and painless bioethics process, to produce a skin/hide structure in a lab over six weeks without the use of any additional supporting materials such as plastics or cellulose in the final skin product.
