SPRING 2023 | 31 64 companies have announced a business line in cultivated meat. Consultants McKinsey and Co. say the global market for cultivated meat could reach $25 billion by 2030. Producers of lab-grown meat got a lot of attention at the 2022 United National Climate Change Conference, COP27. Mosa Meat CEO Maarten Bosch spoke on a panel with other alternative protein leaders, policymakers and investors. Good Meat held dining events to show off its newest version of cultivated chicken. Much remains to be discovered. At a 2021 conference presented by the Good Food Institute, speakers said that higher-density cell cultures and significant cost reductions in recombinant protein and growth factor production were needed for cultivated meat to be commercially viable at scale. Enter Schultz and team. Schultz had been reading about cultivated meat and thought her rheology work would combine well with the expertise of Snyder, Brown and McIntosh in antibiotic resistance, biomaterials, scaffold microstructures and energy. “We knew we had complementary skills. … It became quite obvious we had a really unique perspective on how to solve one of the issues they are having in that industry,” says Schultz. Cultured meat starts with a handful of cells taken from an animal through a biopsy. The idea is to grow muscle tissue by nurturing the cells with a nutrient broth on a scaffold in a bioreactor. Schultz says existing processes are expensive, partly because of the need for chemical cues for cell differentiation and growth. The team’s goal is to provide a scalable alternative that overcomes key barriers facing cultivated meat production, including nutrient delivery to cells and waste removal. “Our approach uses hydrogels as scaffolds to grow the animal muscle tissue. Animal muscle satellite cells will be encapsulated in these materials in 3D,” says Schultz. “This scaffold has hierarchical structure and is a collaboration between myself and Mark Snyder. This should force cells to organize into fibers like they are in muscle. “We are also using vesicles within the scaffold to deliver nutrients and oxygen to cells as the meat grows. This is done by Angela Brown. This allows oxygen and nutrients, which are essential for these cells to remain viable, to be delivered in the piece of muscle as the meat grows. This is usually an issue—that as the piece of meat gets bigger, the cells on the inside will die because of a lack of oxygen and nutrients. “Then Steve McIntosh is using electrochemical strategies to ‘exercise’ the meat, which will also enable the development of the fibrous structure. Growing with a structure that mimics native muscle will give the correct bite and feel of the meat, so it is not just a squishy texture like ground meat.” The lab is currently working with cells from pigs and chickens because they were able to find a reliable source, Schultz says. The multimillion-dollar question is how many people will be willing to eat meat that’s grown in a lab. The answer is surprisingly high. Forty percent of U.S. consumers say they would eat cultured meat, and 60% of vegans are willing to try it, according to new research from Surveygoo commissioned by Ingredient Communications. Those numbers might increase if the cost is comparable and the taste the same as what consumers are used to. “Young people don’t care that their meat is made in a giant stainless steel vessel,” said ABEC CEO Scott Pickering in an article in foodnavigator-usa.com. ABEC is a California biotech equipment company partnering with Good Meat to design, manufacture and install the largest known bioreactors for avian and mammalian cell culture. The ultimate goal, scientists and thought leaders say, is to complement the $14 trillion meat industry, not replace it. Schultz says she eats meat, but is tuned in to the environmental impact of meat production and tries to buy locally and organically. “In the end, this all came out of scientific curiosity,” says Schultz. “All of us work in some way to better humanity.” L This story also appeared in the Lehigh Research Review. “Our approach uses hydrogels as scaffolds to grow the animal muscle tissue.” —KELLY SCHULTZ THE FUTURE
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