U.S. Biotech Firm Uses Mushroom To Produce 'Leather'

The US biotech company MycoWorks has created a material from mushroom mycelium that looks and feels like leather and has secured investments to produce the material in earnest for luxury bag maker Hermes.

Photo Insert: MycoWorks grows cells from the mycelium so that it can engineer them into a densely woven material patented under the name Fine Mycelium.

Over the past few years, it's become easier for vegans to find a variety of tasty food options and now MycoWorks has pioneered the manufacture of a leather-type material that comes from the thread-like substance in the mycelium, the root system of mushroom, a fungus, wiseGEEK reported.

California-based MycoWorks has come up with a way to use fungi – that's mushrooms to me and you – to develop eco-friendly, vegan "leather" similar to the efforts undertaken by US start-ups a decade ago to produce biodegradable but durable plastic-like material from plants using biomimesis.

The magic comes from mushroom mycelium, which is an underground structure of tiny root-like threads. MycoWorks grows cells from the mycelium so that it can engineer them into a densely woven material patented under the name Fine Mycelium.

The company claims the material not only looks like leather, but has the same durability, performance, and strength, wiseGEEK concluded.

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