What's after lab-grown beef? Lab-grown leather, of course

Modern Meadow recently debuted its lab-grown animal-free leather materials at the ‘Items: Is Fashion Modern?’ exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York – which runs until January 28th 2018. The technology behind the ZOA leather material is based around DNA editing, as the biological component of leather isn’t actually animal skin but rather the protein collagen. Modern Meadow took the base strands of a DNA molecule’s double helix and replaced certain sequences to customize cells to then behave in a certain way. That enabled them to 3D print the customized cells into a shape that is adaptable, and able to grow and develop. The global leather industry is worth over USD 100 billion a year.