This technology is part of an idea trend to create a world of animal-free animal products that would be better for our carbon footprint, reduce bacterial contamination of the food supply and result in less animals kept in what some view as cruel conditions. This technology is basically culturing and then bioprinting ultralifelike leather products directly from real animal cells. The process involves biopsying a living animal, isolating the desired cells, growing large numbers of them, and preparing them into cell aggregates--spheres of tens of thousands of cells. These aggregates can then become the raw material for more industrial processes. A fully funded company called Modern Meadow plans on producing factory produced calfskin by the end of 2012. This technology is the precursor for factory produced meat products since any cells, not just skin cells to make leather, can be produced using this process. This trend is also related to the envrionmental trend issue of unsustainable leather and meat use. From Modern Meadows website, "Modern Meadow applies the latest advances in tissue engineering to develop novel biomaterials to address some of our most pressing global challenges. We develop cultured leather and meat products which require no animal slaughter and much lower inputs of land, water, energy and chemicals."
