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Life

A sliver of lab-grown wood has been made from stem cells

Growing wood directly from stem cells could offer an alternative to cutting threatened hardwood trees, but it isn't clear if it has same properties as actual wood

By James Dinneen

21 November 2024

Plant stem cells growing in culture

New Dawn Bio

What may be the world’s first piece of lab-grown wood isn’t quite big enough to qualify as a woodchip – it’s more like a splinter. But the tiny fragment could be a big step towards reducing the number of trees chopped down to meet our lumber demands, if it holds up to the task.

“As far as we know, our early prototype is the first piece of interconnected wood-like tissue ever produced from cell culture,” says at start-up New Dawn Bio.

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