Lab-grown Tyrannosaurus leather: More chicken than dinosaur?

"In early April, the Artis Zoo Museum in Amsterdam unveiled a handbag alongside a massive dinosaur skeleton — one made of "lab-grown T. rex leather." Polish fashion label Enfin Leve designed the bag as part of its line of experimental clothing. But it was the material, not the design, that drew the most attention. "It has a character unlike anything we've handled. Dense, primal, operating on its own logic," the label wrote on social media. The company plans to auction the handbag on June 11 in Paris."

"But what exactly do they mean by "T. rex leather"? Dinosaurs died out about 66 million years ago. In the 1990s, the film "Jurassic Park" sparked a global fascination with dinosaurs and fueled speculation about whether scientists could clone them. Researchers have consistently said no: The DNA breaks down over time. Debate over dinosaur proteins About 20 years ago, researchers in Montana discovered parts of a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton."

"Up until then, scientists had largely believed such organic material couldn't survive for millions of years. Science makes it clear that cloning dinosaurs using paleo-DNA like in the 'Jurassic Park' films is pure science-fiction. Yet many researchers remained skeptical. Some argued that bacteria colonizing the bones may have created the structures Schweitzer identified. The debate over exactly what her team found continues today."

"The Amsterdam handbag project relies on data from that Montana discovery, according to a preprint by Thomas Mitchell and Ernst Wolvetang, founders of The Organoid Company, which helped develop the lab-grown leather. "It's like having a puzzle, but you only have a few pieces, and then you have to fill in the rest," Mitchell said, describing the proc"

An Amsterdam museum unveiled a handbag made with lab-grown T. rex leather alongside a massive dinosaur skeleton. The bag was designed by the Polish fashion label Enfin Leve as part of experimental clothing, but attention focused on the material. The label described the leather as dense and primal. The handbag is planned for auction in Paris on June 11. The concept draws on research from a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton discovered in Montana, where soft tissue remains and protein fragments were reported. Scientists have said cloning dinosaurs from ancient DNA is not feasible because DNA degrades over time, and debate continues over whether the reported structures were created by bacteria. A preprint links the handbag’s lab-grown leather to that Montana discovery and describes the process as filling in missing pieces from limited data.

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