Tyneside 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.
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.
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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.
