StemCell Therapy

It will be made in a similar way to brewing beer, says Lavanya Anandan. She is not talking about a new kind of drink, however, but describing a new industry aiming to grow meat in the lab. This new food is known as clean meat, cultured meat or cultivated meat.

Demand for meat has never been higher, but the way we produce it today is unsustainable and, for some, ethically dubious. So scientists around the world are learning to grow meat and seafood in their labs without the need for farms or livestock.

They have had considerable success the worlds first lab-grown beef burger was cooked and tasted in London in 2013, albeit at a price of around $250,000 and costs have dropped by orders of magnitude since. The challenge now is to turn these lab-based successes into food that can be sold on supermarket shelves at reasonable prices.

Thats how Anandan fits in. Leading a new Innovation Field on this topic and based in Silicon Valley, Anandan works for Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, a leading science and technology company in Healthcare, Life Science and Performance Materials with a 350-year record of innovation. The companys strategy and transformation team is working on new products and technologies for the future. One of their goals is to provide the technology platforms and infrastructure that will enable the cultured meat revolution.

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This revolution is desperately needed. The worlds population is growing, with another 2 billion expected by 2050. Demand for meat is expected to grow by 70 per cent, significantly increasing the pressure on limited resources such as land and water. This in turn will drive climate change. Today, livestock farming is responsible for 15 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions and is a key cause of deforestation. If you look at the numbers, theyre quite staggering, says Anandan.

If meat could be grown in the lab instead of on farms, it could create an alternative to traditionally-produced meat and help reduce the environmental footprint for meat production. Additionally, by reducing or eliminating the use of antibiotics and hormones, cultured meat could also have positive health aspects.

Cultured meat is produced using some of the same technologies biologists have used for decades to grow animal cells. First, muscle cells are taken from live animals as a small biopsy from which stem cells are isolated and then cultured in the lab.

The next stage is more difficult, however. The cultured cells must then be grown and differentiated into a form of tissue comprising of muscle, fat and other cells that is suitable for food processing and consumption. This takes place inside bioreactors where the cells are trapped and supported in a scaffold of fibres, just as in animal tissue, and submerged in a cocktail of nutrients called a growth media. Finally, this tissue must be processed and formed into products such as burgers patties, sausages or shrimp mince.

Currently, around 60 start-ups around the world are developing and improving the cultured meat process to make different meats and seafood. Most of them are growing its own special cells that require bespoke growth media and cellular scaffolding. And they are all looking to scale up production while bringing down costs.

This is where the expertise of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, comes in. The techniques used to culture meat are the same for the biologics and cell therapy industry and, as a leading life sciences company, weve helped solve similar challenges, says Anandan.

The company is not aiming to grow its own meat but to develop the materials and technologies that will accelerate its development. And it is already working with start-ups, non-profits and academics. We are taking our existing expertise and trying to come up with innovative solutions and technologies such as reagents and analytical tools to solve problems for the clean meat sector, she says.

One important goal is to find the right formulation for the growth media. This is a cocktail of 50 to 100 ingredients such as sugars, salts, amino acids, micronutrients and growth factor. Each cell line is going to require a specific optimised formula, says Anandan.

This growth medium must also not contain animal-derived compounds and economical enough to make lab-grown meat affordable. Cost is an important hurdle that has to be overcome, she says. Currently, culture media costs hundreds of dollars per litre, but for clean meat production to scale this needs to drop to around $1 a litre.

Other challenges for the industry are to develop the tissue scaffolds needed to support growth of the cells, and to engineer the specialised bioreactors needed to scale-up production.

So when will the fruits of this cellular agriculture reach the supermarket shelves? In the next few years we can expect a few launches of small-scale products in high end restaurants. It will be a pretty expensive burger in a restaurant in Hong Kong or San Francisco says Anandan. My prediction is that by 2030 you might see them on supermarket shelves at a decent price.

To find out more:In the US, click hereIn the UK, Europe and RoW, click here

Free online eventThe global demand for meat is expected to rise nearly 70% by 2050. Cultured Meat could help to feed this growing hunger for animal protein with less negative impact on the environment. But which technology hurdles do scientists have to overcome before cultured meat becomes mainstream?When: 10 June 2020, from 16:30 to 17:30 BSTWhere: onlineIn the US, register for free hereIn the UK, Europe and RoW, register for free here

What if medicines could be 3D printed? Or plants grown in agricultural tunnels using nanotechnology that fine-tunes sunlight to boost yields? Or cultured meat grown in bioreactors? These ideas have the potential to transform industries but they need a helping hand to come to fruition. This is exactly the aim of the Innovation Centers of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany.

The Innovation Center is a playground for scientists and entrepreneurs to explore new fields and develop new businesses beyond the companys current scope. These teams are now operating at the companys headquarters in Darmstadt, Germany, with additional hubs in Silicon Valley and China, with involvement from colleagues around the world. Our innovation projects operate like startups, says Lavanya Anandan, who is coordinating the clean meat innovation field at the California site. The Innovation Center and Innovation Hubs are building an ecosystem where we can grow viable new businesses with the backing and know-how of a big company.

In addition to the clean meat research, the Innovation Center is working on a laser-adjustable lens replacements for people with cataracts, new technologies for structure analysis on a sub-microgram scale and many other challenges.

Find out more.In the US, go to: innovationcenter.emdgroup.comIn the UK, Europe and RoW go to: innovationcenter.merckgroup.com

Read the original post:
Accelerating the cultured meat revolution - New Scientist

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