ILLUSTRATION:^ ISRAELG^ VARGAS;^ NICKD.BURTONSTART
“Glitzbox is Rent
the Runway for
jewellery. Pay £50 a
month and get the
coolest designer
jewellery delivered.
Each box contains
up to £400 of
jewellery – and if
you decide you want
to keep your Mei-Li
Rose rings or V
Jewellery pendant,
they deduct the
cost from your
card.” Sanjana
Varghese“I love what Nu
Wardrobe are
trying to do, which
is connecting
people to share
clothes rather
than buy new ones
when they fancy
a change. Like
us, they believe
that the future of
the planet, and of
our communities,
depends upon
us re-learning the
joy of sharing!”WIRED asks three
entrepreneurs
about their
newest product
and plug-in finds.“Would you eat it?” is a
question Daan Luining
often asks his friends. He
is referring to the “flesh”
his company, Meatable, is
hoping to produce at scale
in the near future: burgers
that look like those sold
in supermarkets, but are, in
fact, entirely lab-grown.
Three years ago, Luining
met Mark Kotter, a
researcher from the
University of Cambridge
who was working on
pluripotent stem cells.
These are cells that are
yet to develop into an
adult cell with a specific
function – such as muscle
tissue – defined by a gene.
A pluripotent stem cell can
be programmed to develop
into a specific adult cell,
but the process can
typically take 50 days, and
has low efficiency rates.
“We established a
technology to completely
control the genes that are
switched on, so that to
get a mature muscle cell,
for instance, only takes
a week,” Kotter says.
Luining saw how this
technology, called OPTi-OX,
could be applied to animal
cells, in order to develop the
adult fat and muscle cells
needed to create burgers.
As pluripotent stem cells
can multiply infinitely, this
could in theory produce
industrial quantities
of meat without the space
needed for livestock.
“Imagine having meat
factories right in the
middle o f cities,” saysLuining. “Farming would be
unnecessary: that’s a huge
environmental benefit.”
Meatable, based in the
Hague, expects to grow its
first burger in two and a
half years, and to be ready
to scale the technology
at an industry level in
another three years. That
is because the OPTi-OX
technology has so far been
proven in mice, rats and
humans, but is yet
to be adapted for cows and
other animal cells. Once
it is ready, the company
hopes to sell the meat
at about £15 a kilo. And
it has already received
about £2.7m in a funding
round led by BlueYard
Capital. But the question
remains: would you eat it?
Daphné Leprince-Ringuet
meatable.comPluripotent stem cells may put slaughter-free, lab-grown flesh on the menu
Meat’s new course
EARLY ADOPTERSAdam
Goodall
Co-founder,
CoconutTes s a
Cook
Co-founder,
OlioGrace
Gould
Founder,
SODA“The product we’ve
been trying out
is a Slack plugin
called HeyTaco!
It’s a simple
application that
lets the team give
each other digital
‘tacos’ to celebrate
awesome work.
We love the way
it helps celebrate
everyone’s efforts,
highlighting
important work to
the entire team.”