Scientist Made Beer with 3D Printing Rhino Horns to Stop Rhino Poaching

Rhinos have been killed every year for their valuable horns which are used in traditional medicine, in art pieces, for making handles for weapons and many more.

Poaching has decimated the rhino population, especially in recent years. The western black rhino, a subspecies of the black rhino, was declared extinct in 2011, and only five northern white rhinos remain, all in captivity. Though conservation efforts have helped increase the number of rhinos left in the wild to almost 30,000, poaching numbers have skyrocketed since 2008. According to a report from The Guardian, 1,200 were killed in 2014, up from 1,004 in 2013, and 448 in 2011—compared to 83 in 2008.

San Francisco-based Pembient says it can now engineer a synthetic rhino horn that is genetically and spectrographically identical to the real thing. Using keratin, a type of fibrous protein, and a small amount of rhino DNA, the company can produce a dried powder that is 3D-printed into a solid material. Currently, the going rate for rhino horns is about $60,000 a kilogram. As technology like DNA sequencing and synthetic biology continue to advance and become more accessible and affordable to startups, manufacturing biologically equivalent rhinoceros horns could be a potential solution to the poaching problem that’s on track to leave thousands of rhinos dead this year.

Pembient is moving quickly to bring its fake horns to market, beginning with a partnership with one of Beijing's largest breweries to make a rhino horn beer that will launch later this year.

The product will be sold as a powder and in horn form. In the last couple of months, while in residence at the San Francisco-based biotech accelerator IndieBio, the company figured out how to 3-D print powder into the shape of horns.

Some government agencies and environmental groups advocate for the farming of rhinos to legalize the production and distribution of rhino horn, much like the farming of crocodile skins and other animal products that come from endangered species. Scaling the farming of one of the world’s oldest creatures is one of the difficulties advocates of this solution run into.

Pembient isn’t stopping at rhino horns. Markus also has plans to recreate hard materials like ivory or tiger bone. And even potentially manufacture synthetic biological artifacts from species that are already extinct, like a saber tooth tiger or a mammoth.

Via: [The Daily Dot]