The bag was presented at a public display at the Art Zoo museum in Amsterdam, where it is exhibited next to a replica of a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton, write Designboom.
Photo: VML
Unlike traditional leather production, where collagen is extracted from the hides of cattle, sheep, or other animals after slaughter, the project used fragments of T-Rex fossil bones. Since the proteins preserved in the fossils were incomplete due to the fossilization process that took more than 68 million years, The Organoid Company team used computational biology and AI modeling techniques to reconstruct the missing genetic data.
As a result, the researchers created a complete synthetic “blueprint” of collagen of this species. The recovered DNA was integrated into a carrier cell line, after which the cells were cultured.
Photo: VML
The process is characterized by a scaffold-free approach: cells are not grown on a ready-made basis, but create their own extracellular matrix from scratch. According to the developers, the resulting material is identical to the collagen found in normal natural leather. At the same time, it is biodegradable, repairable, and produced without the use of chrome tanning chemicals.
After completing the biotechnological stage, the material was transferred to the Enfin Levé brand for the design and production of the bag.
Photo: VML
The founder of the brand, Michal Gadas, noted that the process of creating the accessory began with studying the physical properties of the new material: its resistance to loads, ability to hold tension, and the surface's reaction to design techniques.
"We let the material itself determine the shape of the object," the designer emphasized, adding that in its nature, this "skin" is unlike any of the materials the brand has worked with before.
The exhibition will last at the museum for six weeks from April 2, 2026, after which the accessory is planned to be put up for auction.
We previously wrote that NASA accelerates the plan to create a permanent base on the Moon.
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