This is a transcript of an email interview with Harriett and Matt, lead by Sonja Zjawinski for wired magazine.

What are each of your full names?
Harriet Harriss Matthew Harrison

How old are each of you?
31, 25

What do you do?
HH: Architectural Designer - Director of own design company called Design Heroine MH: Freelance product designer

How long have you been together?
HH: 2 years on 29th June

Are you married? Do you live together?
MH: No. Yes.

Do you have any children?
HH: Hell no, but we want a dog.

Why did you decide to participate in this project? What does it mean to you as individuals and as a couple?
HH: the most intimate thing for my most intimate love
MH: This is an opportunity to create a piece of jewelry that has a significance that it much deeper than traditionally manufactured rings - even if they are bespoke.

While the project is by nature based in science, do you think it says more about our ideas about modern romance or about our curiosity of how the human body regenerates? Can you go into a bit of depth about your answer?
MH: This project is a marriage of science and art, and in many ways the science is not as ground breaking as the art side to this project. The science is used as one part of the creative process, but the significance of wearing as jewelry something made from somebody else's body has exciting consequences for our perceptions of sharing and giving in an intimate relationship.

I'm not sure how far a long you are in the process, but if the site is fully updated you haven't gone in to have your cells extracted. Are you nervous about the procedure?
HH: No because I have to have my wisdom teeth out anyway (they keep getting infected) and so I have a genuine medical need. The cell extraction wont affect the subsequent pain I will experience from that procedure, and the increased risk is small.

How do you feel about knowing that your cells will be grown (in simple terms) in a Petri dish? Do you feel like it's a part of you, somewhat like a child? Or is it too abstract to connect back to yourself?
HH: I would love to see my cells in a petri-dish doing their own thing going off into the world, starting out as baby cute nurture dependent little things that then become 'teenage' and realise their independence, subsequently turn around and tell me to f**k off get a piercing and leave home. MH: I always wanted an extra arm - perhaps I can get them to grow me one on the side. In one sense I think it will be a bit of me in a similar way to hair, or fingernails - it grows as part of you and you have an emotional relationship with it (maybe more hair than fingernails) - but it doesn't have a strong physical relationship. The fact that is is grown through science to have a life as another object will make it precious and enhance the emotional connection.

How involved will you guys be in the project other than donating your cells and designing your rings? Will you visit the lab to check out progress?
HH: Tobie has been rigorous in mapping our journey through the process so far and that record will also be of value to us. If we get to go to the lab and wave to our bodily bits through layers of sterilized plexi-glass then that would be great, poetic even.

f you have children have you told them about the project? NA What were their reactions? Have you told anyone else, like your family? What were their reactions?
HH Matt's family think we are going to go and live in a tree and call our kids Tinkerbell and Twiggy anyway, so they seemed completely unfazed when we told them.

Do you plan on wearing your rings? If so, do you plan on wearing each other's rings (in other words each others bone)?
HH: Yes and Yes. That's been the plan from the beginning. Before we got involved in the Biojewellery project we were talking about getting rings made for each other, so we have always had the intention of wearing them. MH: I don't need any surgery at the moment so it might be difficult to get access to my bone cells - but an alternative idea is to grow two rings from the same source - for me this has an extra sense of connection as the separate jewelry items will be connected in a way that jewelry manufactured in any other way cannot be.

Have you done anything else that goes against the status quo to express your affection for each other? Like tattoos? Piercings? Something so far out I can't even think of?
HH: within 3 weeks of getting it together, we bought almost identical motorbikes and and razzed off around London swerving around taxis and getting high by chugging each others exhaust fumes. Neither of us had any riding experience. We stopped short at matching riding suits, and our friends said they thought it was really romantic, but I have since learnt that they were all convinced we were going to die.

The debate regarding the ethics of growing tissues, bone, and especially stem cells rages through science, religious, and political communities. How do you feel about participating in a project that some people might think mocks this very debate through its lack of scientific merit?
HH: I think this kind of project unpicks the notion that science and art exist at other ends of the spectrum. Certain threads of science undoubtedly exist on the edge of the ethical practice - I've seen enough images of tortured beagles and mice with human ears protruding from their backs to know that the at the core of the ethical correctness about this project is consent - both of us want to do this. In terms of religion, my 'belief' lies in tolerance - what we are doing is simply expressing love symbolically - a concept that is at the core of all religions. With conventional jewellery - diamonds and gold are extracted from mines in dangerous conditions for terrible pay, usually from countries with human rights records and a civil war. I think that is highly unethical. I love the idea that its only precious to us because it is literally, us. Compared to what it means to us, it is almost worthless to anyone else.

MH: (without reading HH response before writing this) I think that this in no way mocks the debate, but contributes to it significantly. Scientific merit is not the sole consideration of the debate, you mention ethics, religion and politics yourself in the question. The point of this exercise is to point that out and demonstrate the other consequences of this kind of science. In one respect, I think this is far more ethical than exploitative mining for diamonds or hunting of rare animals for other 'precious' materials. If we can grow precious materials that mean an awful lot to individuals through a deep physical connection, then this is far more positive than demonstrating love through the magnitude of a shiny rock. In many respects the potential medical and genetic consequences of this kind of science are far more important - but that is not to say that we shouldn't consider more delicate cultural consequences through this kind of project.