At ECHO Dubai, Tina Gorjanc is arriving this December, to share her knowledge on bioengineered genetic material that is grown in the lab. She revolutionized the use of tissue-engineering technology and the process of de-extinction. Read more about her on this edition of Featured with ECHO.

What is your life philosophy?

Life is too short to spend the time, you don’t have doing things you don’t want to do with people that don’t inspire you.

Which designs or products do you think would/could benefit the Arab region?

I don’t feel confident speaking specifically for the Arab region as I don’t believe to have enough insight into the design culture there. So, I can speak in general and I believe this applies to the Arab region as well – I am a strong believer in the ever-growing need to finally start designing smartly and stop producing more and more product that we don’t really need.

Which city do you find most inspirational and why?

I would probably choose Vienna, Austria. I believe that their traditionalistic and artistic environment is the perfect setting to recharge our creativity.

However, as I have never been to the Arab region before I am also looking forward discovering our general and design culture and possibly reorder my top inspirational city candidates list.

Which is your favourite material to work with and why?

I find biological material, especially the ones of a smaller scale (DNA, genes…), really intriguing as I believe that the new advances in research that are dealing with those materials are enabling the evolution of exciting new technologies. Besides creating new alternatives and products, those technologies also enable the implementation of the mentioned materials within domains with which they weren’t previously associated.