We want to preserve traditions and animals will it pass as real, will it satisfy the demand, will it help save the species . This is techknow. The show about innovations that can change lives. Genetically modified food were going to explore the intersection of hardware and humanity and were doing it in a unique way. This is a show about science by scientists. Techknow investigates rhino horn. Welcome to techknow. Were talking about a unique and controversial effort to save the rhinos. It is completely devastating rhinos, but this story starts with a company that is based in San Francisco and theyre literally cultivating rhino horn in the lab. Fake rhino, but theyre aiming for it to be completely indistinguishable from the real thing what i find fascinating this is the opposition to it is coming from environmentalists itself the reason is because its a controversial topic. We have to start with why theyre in the position to begin with lets take a look. [ ] modern day hanoi. The cap toll of vietnam is a city of contrast. It is where consumerism meets communism. Where western tastes mingle with ancient traditions. Like this one, the mistaken use the rhino horn for medicine. This more fighting practice is usually conducted in the shadows of the plaque market this is a very valuable product black market it sells higher than gold. The demand for rhino horn has poached the species to the brink of extinction. Her face was hacked off why in the 21st century ancient myths are set to destroy animals. It is said that the horn cures disease. It is a status symbol in vietnam where there is more new wealth and use of rhino. It isnt just used the way the previous generation did. This group of friends mixing it with their drinks during a night of partying. A recent report by traffic, a wildlife trade monitoring group, suggested the use of rhino horn amongst wealthy urban vietnamese men is now one of the major drivers of rhino poaching. With demand high, prices are soaring. This man told us he could afford the habit. Traditions dont dire here. They take on new forms. Rhino horn is illegal in vietnam, but techknow arranged a rare oncamera interview with this former user. He told techknow that he used it to treat an illness that left lumps on his arms but quit after two years when it failed to produce results. Sadly, the facts do not support a Single Health claim surrounding the horns. In fact, rhino horn is made mostly of keratin, the same substance that is found in human nails. We went through the process. Reporter one of the latest and most controversial to stop the use of rhino comes from a techstart up in is an fan cisco. An analytical chemist and one of the cofounders said they want to disrupt of illegal rhino horn trade by flooding it with an alternative. I know what youre aiming for is called a bio identical product. What does that mean . It means that you would not be able to tell by any analytical xhem spree thold or d. N. A. Method whether it was wild or cultured or made in the wild. Reporter he took me through the steps. The first step on is to produce keratin. You dont want any of your d. N. A. Getting in there or who knows what will happen. Reporter what do you have in this box here . So these are a lot of genes. It came from the whole database of a white rhino. Were going to eliminate this code for hair, fingernails, for maybe a rhino corn. Reporter it has been a process of trial and error but he says he has identified the gener responsible for rhino horn keratin. It is inserted into bio engineered yeast once you get the yeast that has these instructions to turn sugar into a certain protein, up can take that and its just like beer, giant vats. Reporter youre brewing rhino horn yes. Reporter that is combined with other elements found in rhino horn, like zinc and nickel in a powder. We started with a powder. We want to go further because people want full horns. It is a marker of authenticity. Reporter this is. Ceo and says using 3d printing techniques they want to manufacture rhino horns that will pass as the real deal reporter weve covered the wildlife trade extensively and on i got to hold one. Here is a picture. Thats a fairly large rhino horn. Are you saying that your product will eventually look exactly like that . Yes. Thats what were aiming for. We want to do something that is exactly the same as the rhino horn reporter by flooding the market with its bio fabricated horns, they have lofty goals suggesting that the prices for rhino horn will drop dramatically reducing or putting the extinction to an end. Its a provocative idea that has drawn criticism from many. Big Companies Seeking to bio fabricate wildlife products with suspicion. Theyre trying to do it to make money and i think thats their primary goal. Reporter john baker is managing director of wild aid, an Environmental Group that works to convince consumers to stop using endangered wildlife products. You can change peoples attitudes, especially in a country like vietnam where so many of the people are young. What we dont want to do is now give the young people a reason to start using rhino horn because its okay to use rhino horn reporter it is said it is a matter of economics and putting more labmade rhino horn on the market is what will save the rhino we are looking at the whole supply chain of how horns move from africa into east asia. We want to target along that supply chain, offer our horn as an alternative to poached horn relying on the fact that, you know, once its out in the market, the product might sold and change hands as if it were real rhino horn. Is that a part of your plan here. People may find it ethical. Some people may buy it in the hope of making a profit as reselling tasmania a real horn. We will be able to create a pricing graduate. Gentleman it is said it will be over a year for a product that will be placed on the market. The question is will it work . Coming up next we head into the lab. Okay. Fire it up reporter we see if the fake rhino horn can pass as the real thing. [ ] we want to hear what you think about these stories. Follow us on twitter and at aljazeera. Com techknow three rhinos are killed a day in south africa. The poaching has got so bad that the species will be extinct for three to five years. Reporter the bio fabrication of one of the most illegal substances in the world how will you know when youre there . Our benchmark is to pass any test that a laboratory can do. Reporter techknow put it to the test taking a powder sample to see how closely its current prototype matches up with the real thing here is a sample we prepared for you. If you take this and test it, it should be identified as rhino horn. All right. We take the powder sample for independent analysis at this commercial lab in seattle started by a washington ufrt professor. University professor. They test many things. If someone is going to spend a tonne of money on rhino because it is super expensive they might want to get tested it this way yes. It is a good way to do it. Reporter the chief materials chemist shows us around. I have the sample here that we are going to test against your sample which is, what . This is a sample of an actual rhino horn from the museum here. Reporter one of the things were looking for is how closely a protein known as keratin matches up with the sample. Keratin is similar to of the rhino horn is similar to humans nails. I sacrificed mind for comparison. Does it matter how good . No. If you get a good chunk of the white part it should be fine just the way i like it. Okay. I have three samples now. The we test the flake of rhino horn using xrf. It is bombarded with xrays im going you to prep the samples and put them into the machine. Very important not to lose your sample. Rhino horn there. The sam goes right on top. Place it underneath there and center it. This is the xrf. How is that . Perfect. Im going to turn on the xray emitter now. We will see the results immediately. Fire it up we then compare the results of the rhino horn xrf analysis against the company sample and my fingernail the red is my fingernail . Yes. The purpose is the company sample correct. Then the green as before is the rhino. My completely untrained eye, i see big differences were mainly seeing huge differences in the amount of sals yum. It is high in the company camp. Calcium. It is high in the company sample. Yours and the real horn samples. Theyre similar. The company sample is similar but theres high levels of calcium which are probably an effect of the growth medium or additives from the pharmaceutical perspective, would you say youre just as well suited having powered physical nail as you are powdered rhino horn you might get people having a tough time to go with that, but i would agree with that. Next we use ftir to determine the molecules present. After seeing high levels of calcium, what comes next isnt a surprise the two compounds showing up strongly are two. Why would these two minerals be included . Theyre both used as preservatives. Calcium carbonate is an anti pumping agent and the other is a preserver. So much president in the company sample it is hard to get a good sense of keratin protein. Because we know theres cash nature and citrate in it, we can separate the peaks out. That will leave the peaks associated with the protein. What is left is a protein that bears some resemblance to rhino keratin and it doesnt look like yeast which was what was used to make the bio neared rhino horn. There is keratin there. It is a crude form of it. Theres more refinement that need to be done. Theyre not there yet, but theyre going in the right direction. Reporter according to the final lab report, the company sample contained high levels of calcium aattributed to large quantities of preservatives obviously not found in the real rhino horn. We reached out to the company for comment. They responded that the high leflts of calcium why levels of calcium were in keeping with the real horn. While they acknowledged the presence of some preservatives, they says theyre just part of the prototype process and wont be in the horn when we are at the pilot plant scale. Only time will tell if they have cracked the code in creating the horn that is 100 bio identical to the same thing. My fingernails are currently still a closer match, begging the question, if taking rhino horn powder is essentially the same as chewing on your fingernails could users be persuaded to just say no . Up next, synthetic rhino horn comes under fire. I think its very dangerous and i encourage them to not introduce synthetic rhino horn products. Al jazeera america. Rhino horn, ground to a powder and used for treating disease has been a medicinal myth for century. It is more expensive than gold, cocaine. It is 17 an ounce. In recent years rhino horn has seen a resurgence in popularity, especially among the upper class it is a very expensive product. Also the more available it is and the more people talk about it, the more other people want to have it we want to preserve traditions and animals. Its not a zero sum gain where the animal has to die to save the tradition or the tradition has to die to save the animal. Would such an alternative be appropriate . This woman is president of a company importer of traditional medicine. She says even the additional medicine needs to evolve for the time. This is the kind of medicine chops you see in china towns around the world. We have to have exotic herbs. This is the gheko. What is this used for . It is used as a tonic and it is used a lot for asthma. Reporter she told me that rhino horn was used 2000 years ago for diseases like epilepsy and menninggitis. Theres no evidence at all that it could do something for cancer. Hang overs, especially. I dont even know why someone would try to use it for that. It seems a relatively new phenomenon. Right. I guess people just want to believe what they want to believe, but theres plenty of other cures for hang over that dont involve killing such a magnificent animal. Reporter what about the company alternative . We dont sell it, and we wouldnt want to sell is real or synthetic. Why not . It encourages people to look for the real such because people will think it doesnt work the same as the real thing reporter what if the synthetic could pass as the real thing . That is what the company is driving on to drive the prices down i think it is dangerous and i ken courage them encourage them not to produce a synthetic product. Reporter he it legititmises horn at the wrong time. He is promoting ads like this. The buying should stop. Reporter each year the numbers of republicans slaughter arered to climb. 1312 was killed in the last year. This vietnamese man says education wont deter users. Reporter it is the demand of die hard users that the Company Believes it can satisfy without hurting rhinos all these demand reduction campaigns may not necessarily work. Were trying to see if we can develop other tools. This is an inevitability. It will happen. We call it cultivation 2. 0. Reporter he has referred to this as cultivation 2. 0 as we need to have new approaches brought to the table. What do you think . I am all for innovating and coming up with new ways to solve this problem. I dont think this is a particularly effective slupgs. I think one solution. I think one of the dangers is we promote the idea that technology is going to save the day and we take our eye off the ball. It less ens the urgency. The clock is particular itting and we need to simplify the path of solution reporter for rhinos the clock is ticking. Thats the only thing that the two sides can agree on. Whether the company will succeed in its bio tech and conservation goals is only something time will tell. At stake, the future of a species you know, this story was actually really hard for me. Im a conservationist and i understand how dire the situation is for rhinos. This kind of approach that is innovative, disruptive makes me nervous why . Well, to me the idea of driving down prices by completely swamping the market with a fake alternative, it raises a bunch of questions about, well, are we just going to increase demand . Are we going to find new uses for this product and then potentially drive people to continue to poach or poach even more this seems less like a science experiment and more like an economics experiment. Just to see what happens when you mess with that supply. I will say the big thing in this is lets say that experiment goes wrong and they find it increases demand. Maybe they can pull back. Do you have any idea that they will pull back . I think they would. One of their main goals is to stop poaching how are you going to be able to prosecute poachers, people who are trading the real rhino horn if we have this market flooded with the fake such. How will you distinguish . This is such a complex scenario that we have here, right. Were talking about international syndicates, the supply chain is infinitely complex. Law enforcement is already overburdened at every step of that supply chain. So the companys solution, at least what theyre proposing, is insert what theyre you will calling a water mark into the product whereby only Law Enforcement would be able to scan a product and be able to know what that water mark looked like i think that is an idealise distic solution. Corruption ask at every level. Somebody else will figure it out and that can really mess with that is out there. When it comes to our environmental challenges, one size does not fit all. Were going to have to keep our eye on this one and seep how it goes. Thanks for watching this episode of techknow. See you next time go behind the scenes at aljazeera. Com techknow. Follow our contributors on all social media platforms. This is al jazeera hello. Welcome to the al jazeera news hour live from our headquarters in doha with me. 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