Fashion Industry Collaboration to Create Lab-Grown Fur | imperial news

three researchers in a laboratory

Luxury fashion house Fendi, part of LVMH, wants a sustainable alternative to fur. Investigators from Imperial and Central Saint Martins are on the case.

Finding an inclusive alternative to fur in the fashion industry means replicating the luxury qualities of the original material. If it feels fake, then it’s a failure. Professor Tom Ellis, from Imperial’s Department of Bioengineering, thinks he has part of the answer: using genes from fur-producing animals like fox and mink to grow substitute hair fibers in the lab.

This approach is now being tested in a two-year project with Central Saint Martins, part of the University of the Arts London, and luxury goods company LVMH, whose Fendi fashion house specializes in fur. “In the last decade, our understanding of biological materials and how nature makes them has increased dramatically,” explains Professor Ellis. “Now is the perfect time to start the idea of ​​designing fibers for fashion made sustainably from microbes.”

fur under the microscope
Skin under the microscope.

Professor Ellis and his group have a lot of experience growing different proteins in the laboratory. This is done by selecting the gene for the protein in question and patching it into a modified form of yeast, which then produces the protein as it grows in a bioreactor. The protein can then be extracted, purified and used according to its properties, for example as a drug or a component of a material.

Keratin Combinations

In the case of the fine hairs that make up the coat, the protein of interest is keratin. The first challenge is that there are between 100 and 200 keratin genes in the typical mammalian genome. “Keratin is incredibly abundant in animals,” says Professor Ellis. “It becomes hair and nails, but it also forms structural components in every tissue and every cell. It is the material that holds things.”

lab grown fibers
Protein fibers can be grown from yeast cells in the laboratory.

So you have to find not one but two types of keratin to give the desired effect. “The diversity in our hair, in our skin and in our nails is due to different pairs of keratin. Therefore, we will test a variety of different combinations of keratins, based on the available genomic sequences of typical fur-producing animals, to see which combination we need.

These pairs of keratins must then join together in the bioreactor to form a basic animal hair. “Our goal within this pilot project is to produce enough suitable keratins to have self-assembly of a fiber that is a suitable length for a skin-like material.”

Meanwhile, Professor Carole Collet from Central Saint Martins will investigate how these fibers could be made into fur and how this new material could be received. “Learning from nature and working at the intersection of design and biotech research is key to exploring such future-oriented innovation,” she says.

regenerative luxury

Together with LVMH and Fendi, Professor Collet will look at the market fit of a new type of leather like this, what designers would do with it and how the public might react. The expectation is that it will be more luxurious than faux furs made from plastic, with better environmental credentials. This will be explored with a full new product life cycle analysis.

LVMH and Central Saint Martins have been working together on this and other “regenerative luxury” themes since 2017, through a collaboration called Maison/0. “The invention of new materials, new regenerative practices and new technologies will enable our Maisons to achieve their climate and biodiversity ambitions,” explains Hélène Valade, Director of Environmental Development at LVMH.

There is great potential for crossovers between the kind of deep science that Imperial is famous for and the creative industries. Professor Tom Ellis Department of Bioengineering

Professor Ellis is quick to credit Professor Collet with putting the fur project together. “The idea came from Central St Martins, and they did the mix between Imperial and the fashion houses,” he says. “It is incredibly exciting to begin this new collaboration with luxury leader LVMH and world-renowned fashion brand Fendi, and Professor Collet, a world leading expert in biodesign.”

If this approach works, you don’t need to stop at familiar luxury furs like fox and mink. “If you look at genomes that have been sequenced, you might want lab-grown mohair or cashmere, or even a fur coat made from the woolly mammoth genome. These things could be possible: all you need to get started is a DNA sequence in a database.”

There is a bright future for future collaborations between Imperial and the creative industries. “The kind of deep science that Imperial is famous for is not normally seen working hand-in-hand with the creative industries, but we think there is great potential for crossovers between these areas,” Professor Ellis concludes. “We can influence and accelerate their innovation, and I’m sure they will do the same for us.”

Source: www.imperial.ac.uk