[Sportschosun reporter Jang Jong-ho] A handbag made from Tyrannosaurus DNA has been unveiled to the world for the first time.
According to the British newspaper Daily Mail, the "T-Rex leather" handbag, jointly created by the biotech company The Organoid Company, Lab Grown Leather Limited and global creative firm VML, will be showcased at an auction house in Paris, France. The design was handled by the Polish fashion brand Anne Leve.
The industry expects it to sell for about 300,000 to 500,000 pounds, or roughly 600 million to 1 billion won.
The leather material was developed at a research facility in Newcastle, England, and originated from a study of a Tyrannosaurus fossil discovered in Montana in 1988. The fossil unearthed at the time was considered one of the better-preserved specimens, and some researchers claimed traces of blood proteins remained. However, the issue remains debated in academic circles.
The researchers said they used information from collagen fragments recovered from the fossil to estimate the Tyrannosaurus's full collagen structure with an AI model. They then applied it to lab-grown leather cells to create the new material.
A VML official involved in the project said, "We wanted to use ancient life forms to create a future luxury material." The official added, "Because there was a strong perception that existing lab-grown leather felt like a fake product, we needed a completely new approach." The official also emphasized, "Instead of going back 66 million years to copy the past, we reinterpreted it."
However, experts say the term "T-Rex leather" is somewhat exaggerated.
An Italian archaeologist said, "What the researchers did was create synthetic collagen using an AI model trained on data from multiple species," adding that "strictly speaking, it is closer to chicken protein than to a dinosaur." The researchers themselves also acknowledged that much of the material's structural framework is based on chicken protein.
Jang Jong-ho, bellho@sportschosun.com
