In Pennsylvania, two researchers turned entrepreneurs have founded BioRealize, a startup dedicated to biofabrication technology.
Karen Hogan, a former University of Pennsylvania doctoral student, and Orkan Telhan, a professor at the university’s School of Design, started the company in 2015 within the Pennovation Center.
Biofabrication uses biobased materials like cells and proteins to manufacture products such as packaging, food and beverages, and animal cell culturing.
“Right now, there are a couple of problems with manufacturing: centralized, highly dependent on petrochemicals, and it’s done other places than here,” Telhan tells the Daily Pennsylvanian. “Biofabrication addresses all of them.”
Biorealize recently partnered with MIT Design Lab and PUMA to develop wearables that incorporated living organisms.