A company manages to manufacture leather without cows

Researchers create pieces of leather from a yeast strain that has been genetically modified.

"No animal has been harmed to make this garment." This is what they could put the labels of the leather garments of the future thanks to an advance achieved by a US company: manufacture leather without cows and in a sustainable way.

On September 27, Modern Meadows organized a performance in the popular SoHo neighborhood in New York. The exhibition, which will remain open until October 12, shows several garments created by the company in which the leather has been used, which does not come from animals thanks to bioengineering.

"Biofabrication allows us to cultivate nature's materials using living cells instead of animals," the company's researchers explain. "What we do is grow collagen, a protein found in the skin of animals, from which we create a biofabricated leather material."

To produce their leather, researchers begin with a yeast strain that has been genetically engineered to generate a protein identical to bovine collagen. Collagen is a molecule composed of proteins and is the main component of the skin, bones and tendons of animals.

The collagen fibers are flexible but also very resistant, so they give the leather its characteristic strength and elasticity. These fibers are composed of long chains of amino acids that are wound in trios to form helices that, in turn, are rolled up to form fibers.

In our skin, as in the rest of animals, both the synthesis of the initial chains of amino acids and the grouping to form the fibers is done thanks to a type of cells called fibroblasts. However, researchers have succeeded in getting the molecules to assemble into fibers without the intervention of fibroblasts and thanks to the yeast.

Leather Resistance Test | Modern Meadows

Pieces of leather of any shape and size

One of the great advantages of this type of skin is that it is not limited to irregular forms of animals, so that companies can ask for specific features for new materials from the cellular level. "Depending on the desired characteristics, we design and engineer the material to provide the appropriate structural and aesthetic properties," the researchers explain.

Finally, the researchers say that the treatment of the skin is "an efficient" and "ecological", since there is no need to use the chemicals necessary to remove hair and fat from the skin of animals and remember that its production requires much less time and less consumption of resources than would be needed to raise a cow or a sheep from birth.

Those responsible for Modern Meadow have been working on this project for more than five years and have invested more than 50 million dollars. It may seem like a disproportionate investment, but the reality is that the global leather business far exceeds $ 100 billion a year, according to The Economist, and taking into account the growing sensitivity of western societies to consumption of animals, this new development could mean a major change in the industry.