bigideaventures
  • Accelerator
  • Funds
  • Portfolio
  • BIFC
  • Team
  • Media
  • Careers
  • Contact
  • Apply
Select Page

The Science of Cellular Agriculture

by admin | Oct 11, 2020 | Blog

By Avery Parkinson

Cellular agriculture  is the science of creating animal products without the animal. There are two main kinds of cellular agriculture: “cellular agriculture” which is concerned with making products containing once living cells (like meat and leather)

and “acellular agriculture” which is about creating animal derived products (like cheese and milk).

For now, we’re going to focus on cellular agriculture (that is, not acellular agriculture). When we produce meat using cellular agriculture, we are said to be “culturing it in vitro”. This is done in three main steps.

  1. Stem cells are extracted from the animal. Stem cells have the potential to become many or all of the different types of cells found in an animal which makes them ideal for creating the different parts of meat. In the case of a primary culture, adult stem cells are taken from the reserves of an animal’s specialized tissues — tissues that already have a specific purpose (like skin or muscle) — and are called progenitors. In the case of secondary cultures, cells might be cryopreserved (frozen) from previous experiments.
  2. Stem cells are immersed in a culture medium and proliferate. A culture medium is a substance containing everything cells need to grow like carbohydrates, fats, amino acids, salts and vitamins. As these molecules diffuse into the cells, they grow and eventually split into two smaller genetically identical cells. In this way, our population of stem cells increases exponentially, or “proliferates”.
  3. Stem cells are put into a bioreactor and differentiate. Bioreactors are machines which expose the cells to a variety of different environmental cues — for instance, electrical stimulation and mechanical contractions. This encourages the cells to differentiate into the types of specialized cells we get in meat (like muscle, fat… etc). These myoblasts then fuse to form multi nucleated myofibers— i.e. tissue.

And bam, we have perfect steak…well, not quite.

This process would be just about where everything ends for unstructured meat, but not for structured meat. Unstructured meat is, as it sounds, meat that doesn’t have a real structure (like ground beef). Structured meat, on the other hand, is meat that has a specific composition of cells — it’s not just the type of cells that characterize it, but the arrangement, too (like steak).

Getting a particular arrangement is not reliable by just allowing the cells to float around in the bioreactor and crossing our fingers. So, we need something called a scaffold. A scaffold is a mold which the cells grow in and around to form the specific shape and structure of the meat. The proliferated cells are usually seeded onto the scaffold (i.e. attached to it) and then put inside the bioreactor.

Some popular scaffolding materials include decellularized plant tissue, chitosan from fungi or recombinant collagen. Researchers at the University of Ottawa and University of Western Australia have been looking into the benefits and downsides of each type, and found the following:

Decellularized plant tissue is abundant and has a great structure and texture. However, it lacks many of the growth cues deemed vital for growing mammalian cells.

 

Chitosan is abundant, and has antibacterial properties. It can also be blended easily with other polymers which suggests that it could easily be tailored to what a scientist is trying to grow. However, in the presence of lysozymes (a naturally occurring enzyme), chitosan will start to break down in unpredictable ways.

Recombinant collagen is highly biocompatible but is hard to produce and source.

All of these scaffold variations are favoured by researchers because of their commonality: they can be produced by plants or fungus, and are hence unreliant on animals.

So there, now we have our perfect steak. Well again…there’s more.

We may have a nicely structured cut of meat, but now we have a scaffold in it. Scientists have proposed using edible scaffolds, but since the whole idea behind the cultured meat is to perfectly replicate meat, scientists are leaning towards figuring out a way to make biodegradable scaffolds. But this in itself introduces some new issues, most notably the rate of decay. If our scaffold literally disappears while the meat is growing on it, it kind of defeats the purpose.

Now, of course, this entire process is easier said than done. Key challenges include the cost of the culture media, media composition, finding biomaterials that are compatible for scaffolding, commercial regulations and of course, public perception. But, there are a number of startups working to overcome these obstacles so that hopefully, the technology will become more mainstream.

Recent Posts

  • Actual Veggies: First WFPB Veggie Burger To Launch In The Meat Case Next To Real Meat Burgers
  • Canada: CULT Announces Strategic Investment in Cultivated Collagen & Gelatin Pioneer Jellatech
  • XPRIZE ADDS THREE SEMIFINALISTS IN $15M COMPETITION TO DISCOVER TOMORROW’S PROTEINS
  • No Evil Foods Plant-Based Meats Named a Real Leaders Top 200 Impact Company
  • Vegan Lamb Maker Black Sheep Foods Raises $5.2 Million

Archives

  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • February 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • November 2018
  • July 2018
  • April 2018
  • February 2018
  • March 2017
  • December 2016
  • July 2016
  • July 2015

Categories

  • Blog
  • Events
  • Podcast
  • Portfolio
  • Press
  • Research Paper
  • Uncategorized
Apply New York Apply Singapore Apply Paris
  • Contact
  • Funds
  • Investing
  • Partners
  • Portfolio
  • BIFC
  • Research
  • Terms
  • Anti Spam
  • Copyright
  • DMCA
  • FTC
  • Privacy
  • Social Media
New York

88 Pine St., 14th Floor
New York, NY 10005

Singapore

No. 9 Chin Bee Drive,
SG, 619860

Paris

Station F, 5 Parv. Alan Turing 75013 Paris, France 

Newsletter
Stay on top of our latest news.
Loading
Don’t worry, we won’t spam you.
© 2020 Big Idea Ventures. All Rights Reserved
  • Follow
  • Follow
  • Follow
  • Follow
 
Required 'Candidate' login to applying this job. Click here to logout And try again
 

Login to your account

  • Forgot Password?

Reset Password

  • Already have an account? Login

Enter the username or e-mail you used in your profile. A password reset link will be sent to you by email.

Close
 

Answers

 

Account Activation

Before you can login, you must active your account with the code sent to your email address. If you did not receive this email, please check your junk/spam folder. Click here to resend the activation email. If you entered an incorrect email address, you will need to re-register with the correct email address.