Lab-Grown Leather Could Be a Reality In 5 Years

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Lab-Grown Leather Could Be a Reality In 5 Years

Posted by timothy on Tuesday September 25, 2012 @04:41AM from the looking-forward-to-leather-sheets dept.

fangmcgee writes "Lab-grown leather apparel could hit the runways in as little as five years—all without harming a hair on a single animal's head, according to Andras Forgacs, co-founder and CEO of Modern Meadow, a Missouri-based startup that's approaching meat-and-leather production from a tissue-bioengineering, rather than farming, point of view. Backed by Breakout Labs, the grant-awarding foundation headed by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, Modern Meadow seeks to combine regenerative medicine with three-dimensional printing to synthesize leather and ultimately meat."

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Now dawns the age by Ukab+the+Great · 2012-09-25 04:42 · Score: 5, Funny

Of ethical bondage equipment.
1. Re:Now dawns the age by jythie · 2012-09-25 05:00 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Actually there are already a number of suppliers for vegan kinksters.
  
  For many it will not matter since it is all about imagery, thus the fact the leather comes from particular animals is 'important'. Others will probably be happy to have more options in alternatives.
2. Re:Now dawns the age by gstoddart · 2012-09-25 05:16 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Actually there are already a number of suppliers for vegan kinksters.
  Wow, that's the fastest I've seen rule #34 apply to a thread in a while. :-P
  
  --
  Lost at C:>. Found at C.
3. Re:Now dawns the age by gstoddart · 2012-09-25 05:28 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Which is suddenly making me wonder ... do vegan chicks swallow? Seems it would be an animal byproduct.
  OK, I'm a bad bad person, I know. ;-)
  
  --
  Lost at C:>. Found at C.
4. Re:Now dawns the age by OhSoLaMeow · 2012-09-25 05:45 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  do vegan chicks swallow?
  Only until they marry.
  
  --
  They can take my LifeAlert pendant when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
And much more expensive than real or fake by crazyjj · 2012-09-25 04:46 · Score: 4, Insightful

If you have a moral objection to real leather, buy fake.
If you don't have any moral objection, buy real.
Or, if you don't like leather, buy neither.
Any one of these three options will be a LOT cheaper than anything grown in a lab. And I seriously doubt this will ever be able to scale.

--
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Headline-Generating Verbage by AttillaTheNun · 2012-09-25 04:49 · Score: 4, Insightful

I could discover sustainable cold fusion in as little as 5 years. Of course, there is always the chance it may take me longer, or forever.
1. Re:Headline-Generating Verbage by tnk1 · 2012-09-25 05:12 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  I could discover sustainable cold fusion in as little as 5 years. Of course, there is always the chance it may take me longer, or forever.
  I already have discovered it. It works perfectly and solves all the energy issues we might have for a few hundred years of constant growth.
  The only obstacle that is in front of me is just finding the right lobbyist to help get a repeal for certain regressive laws of nature currently on the books.
Even better by phantomfive · 2012-09-25 04:49 · Score: 3, Interesting

Leather is fine, but this could lead to new synthetic materials that improve on leather.

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"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Leather is a wonderful material. by jellomizer · 2012-09-25 04:50 · Score: 3, Insightful

Leather as a material is actually very interesting.
Light, Flexible, Sturdy, Tough, and a great insulator.
Still there isn't a replacement for it in a lot of protective gear. Such as Motorcycle jackets, they are not to make you look bad-ass but if you fall off your bike as an armor so you don't scrape yourself all up. Metal and Plastic is too ridgid, or too flimsy. Leather has the perfect use.
However I don't see much of a market for artificial leather, only because we are still eating cows. Most farms don't produce leather only cattle, but beef cattle what use the hides for leather.
Now if this technology makes affordable meat like it thinks it could, then perhaps artifical leather can come in.

--
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
1. Re:Leather is a wonderful material. by ZeroSumHappiness · 2012-09-25 04:56 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  There are plenty of synthetic replacements for motorcycle leather at much the same price, mostly in the kevlar family, approximately.
2. Re:Leather is a wonderful material. by WillAdams · 2012-09-25 05:08 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Leather is constrained in size by how large a cow will grow, in thickness by the thickest point available for a given area (if you want to work really large, you can't get hides as thick as if you're willing to work smaller) and in quality by how pampered the creature was in its life (Rolls Royce uses cows raised in special pastures w/ wooden fencing (no barbed wire) and the hides which they reject would be top quality elsewhere).
  Also, presumably this material won't require the tanning process, so one will get material equivalent to vegetable tanned w/o the nasty chemicals of chrome tanned.
  Moreover, even though leather can be considered a by-product of the meat industry, it's not cheap --- a full hide is well over $100.
  William
  
  --
  Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Re:And what will happen ... by Verdatum · 2012-09-25 05:04 · Score: 3, Informative

The same fears happened when vinyl pleather first came out. The same fears happened when man-made diamonds became feasible. The market adjusts. The skins still get sold, and the price of the original commodity usually doesn't drop as much as people fear.