Lab-grown 'T. rex leather' handbag unveiled in Amsterdam, but scientists question dinosaur authenticity
Polish fashion label Enfin Leve unveiled a handbag made from lab-grown leather marketed as derived from Tyrannosaurus rex proteins at Amsterdam's Artis Zoo Museum in early April, with plans to auction it in Paris on June 11. The material was created using protein fragments discovered in a 66-million-year-old T. rex skeleton from Montana in the 1990s, combined with artificial intelligence reconstruction. However, paleoproteomics experts argue the resulting leather is approximately 90% chicken protein—since birds are dinosaurs' closest living relatives—and question whether the original fragments actually came from a dinosaur at all.
Polish fashion label Enfin Leve unveiled a handbag made from lab-grown leather marketed as derived from Tyrannosaurus rex at Amsterdam's Artis Zoo Museum in early April, with an auction planned for Paris on June 11. The project was developed by The Organoid Company using protein fragments discovered in a 66-million-year-old T. rex skeleton from Montana, which paleontologist Mary Higby Schweitzer identified in the 1990s. However, paleoproteomics expert Jan Dekker from the University of Turin expressed significant skepticism, noting that proteins typically survive only about 20 million years under exceptional circumstances—far shorter than the 66 million years since T. rex extinction. The lab-grown leather was created by using the discovered fragments as a starting point, then employing artificial intelligence to reconstruct a complete protein sequence based largely on chicken proteins, since birds are the closest living relatives to dinosaurs. Even if the original fragments were authentically from T. rex, Dekker estimates that roughly 90% of the resulting protein sequence comes from chicken rather than dinosaur material, making it more accurately described as synthetic collagen than actual dinosaur leather.
Limitations & open questions
The sources do not provide details about the specific scientific methods used to verify whether the original protein fragments came from T. rex versus contamination from bacteria or other sources, nor do they explain the specific AI model architecture or training data used beyond the mention of chicken proteins. Additionally, the scientific debate over Mary Higby Schweitzer's original 1990s findings—including the specific criticisms about bacterial colonization—could be more thoroughly documented with citations to peer-reviewed responses.
What different sources said
- Deutsche WelleCenter
Lab-grown Tyrannosaurus leather: More chicken than dinosaur?
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