Lab-Grown Leather: Tissue engineering leather using biomaterials textile technologies and 3D cell culture

时装业对皮革的需求远远超过目前的供应。此外，使用动物和制革过程涉及皮革生产唤起文化，道德和环境问题。生物材料和组织工程是广泛开发的研究领域，用于创建支架来再生或替换组织，如骨骼，肌腱和皮肤。开发的方法可以很容易地与纺织技术合作，创造高度创新的实验室生长皮革，这将克服目前的供应和道德限制。该项目的主要目的是将合成支架与3D细胞培养技术相结合，以生产一种新的均匀的纺织细胞结构或“皮革”。这项研究将使传统的纤维支架能够通过纺织工艺转化为独特的织物。这些可生物降解的织物随后将与成纤维细胞一起培养，成纤维细胞将分泌细胞外基质蛋白（包括胶原蛋白和弹性蛋白），并最终将其修饰为与皮肤的真皮层相当。然后，这种“人造”皮肤将经过传统的鞣制工艺，减去之前的一些必要步骤，以生产出机械稳定、均匀的皮革材料。一个主要目标是了解工程皮革的物理特性，如使用最先进的材料、纺织品和基于细胞的表征技术所阐明的那样。然后将评估实验室生长的皮革特性的关键特征以及它们如何受到鞣制过程的影响。该项目将涉及先进的纺织品，细胞培养，材料表征，以及新的制革技术的发展。曼彻斯特大学是英国仅有的两所拥有KES-FB纺织测试设备的大学之一，为有效测试新纺织材料的性能提供了机会。这是必要的，因为主观评估（视觉外观）是皮革分类和选择中最常用的质量控制方法。这个跨学科项目将曼彻斯特大学（纺织品和生物材料）的两个独立研究小组和利物浦大学（生物材料）的一个研究小组联系起来。这一高度创新的研究项目将为开发和扩大实验室生长的纺织材料，用于各种时尚和技术纺织品应用奠定基础。

The demand for leather in the fashion industry far outweighs current supply. In addition, the use of animals and the tanning process involved for leather production conjures cultural, ethical and environmental issues. Biomaterials and tissue engineering are research areas widely exploited for creating scaffolds to regenerate or replace tissues, such as bone, tendons and skin. The methodologies developed could be readily teamed with textile technologies to create highly innovative lab-grown leather, which would overcome current limitations with supply and ethics. The principal aim of this project is the pairing of a synthetic scaffold with 3D cell culture techniques to produce a new uniformed textile-cell construct or 'leather'.This study will enable traditional fibre-scaffolds to be transformed into unique fabrics using textile processes. These biodegradable fabrics will be subsequently cultured with fibroblasts, which will secrete extracellular matrix proteins (including collagen and elastin) and eventually modify it to be comparable to the dermis layer of the skin. This 'artificial' skin will then be subjected to traditional tanning processes minus a number of previously essential steps to create a mechanically stable, uniform leather material.A major goal will be the understanding of the physical properties of the engineered leather as elucidated using state of the art materials, textile and cell-based characterisation techniques. The key features of the lab grown leather properties and how they are influenced by the tanning process will then be assessed. This project will involve advanced textile, cell culture, material characterisation, as well as development of novel tanning techniques. The University of Manchester is one of only two in the UK with a KES-FB textile testing equipment, offering the opportunity to effectively test performance properties of the new textile material. This is necessary as subjective assessment (visual appearance) is the most common method of quality control used in the sorting and selecting of leather hides. This cross-disciplinary project links two independent research groups at the University of Manchester (Textiles and Biomaterials) and one at the University of Liverpool (Biomaterials). This highly innovative research project will set the foundation for development and expansion of lab-grown textile materials for diverse fashion and technical textile applications.