It’s always exciting when a maverick hits the mark. The first polylactic acid (PLA) Petri dish product is a one-to-one replacement for labs using fossil fuel-based plastic plates for cell culture. The maker, a small privately owned company called Diversified Biotech, Inc., collaborated with researchers from Brandeis University to develop it. Fostering eco-justice with a simple swap sounds good, but could this specialized PLA material even improve cell culture?