S5. E10: Nicole Rawling: Lab-Grown Animal Leather is Happening
“…there are two different technologies. One is cultivated… you actually can take the skin cells of an animal and grow those skin cells in a lab. So, you put the skin cells in a bioreactor with a growth serum and a cell culture media that provides those nutrients to those cells to actually grow and then they can take those cells out of the bioreactor and create a material out of them.
And then there's something called precision fermentation, which is taking the DNA from an animal. So, silk, for example, taking silk proteins and putting them within a bacteria or a yeast and then that bacteria or yeast grow collagen, the protein that makes up skin - it's 80% of skin. Growing that collagen in that bacteria or yeast that then can create animal leather or animal hair. It has that exact same DNA as the animal.”
– Nicole Rawling
Nicole Rawling is the co-founder and executive director of the Material Innovation Initiative (MII), a game-changing non-profit that is helping to remove and replace animal materials with high-tech, near-identical materials that are all made without harming an animal.
The goal of the initiative is to remove the farmed animal from materials such as leather, wool, silk, down, fur, and exotic skins - and instead use cutting-edge tech like cultivated and lab-grown cells to make kinder and more sustainable alternatives.
Growing next-gen materials like this is going to change the world – for animals, humans, and the planet.
And by partnering with scientists, start-ups, and retailers, the institute is at the forefront of bringing these critical innovations to market. The future is here and the hope is that in the next decade, animals will no longer be used in materials in the fashion, automotive, and home goods industries. And, Nicole and MII are making this happen fast.
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