Scalable production of cultivated meat

There is an urgent need to find sustainable food alternatives to support the rapidly growing population. Traditional animal agriculture isn't sustainable and is a major greenhouse gas emitter. Cultivated or clean meat is an alternative food technology that offers a healthier and safer option for consumers without animal slaughter, that's estimated to emit 96% less greenhouse gases, and use 96% less water and 99% less land compared to traditionally farmed meat. In comparison to traditional meat products, clean meat is anticipated to significantly reduce food-borne pathogen transmission. By negating the use of antibiotics in farmed animals, the risks associated with antimicrobial resistance are also reduced.
Much work still needs to be done to reach affordability and the scale requirements for sustainability for cultivated meat. Four primary challenges were identified:
1) the need for better cell sources with simple and cheap culture requirements;
2) suitable manufacturing platform technologies for cell expansion and differentiation;
3) scalability to the industrial level and
4) nutritional value and health- promoting attributes [1-3].
This project aims to address the manufacturing platform technologies and the scalability challenges by developing a robust, reliable and cost-effective bioprocess for production of beef microtissues comprising fat and muscle cells. This aim will be achieved through:
1) development of a bioprocess for the production of fat;
2) development of a bioprocess for the production of muscle and
3) co-culture to form microtissues at the litre scale.
Bovine mesenchymal stem cells (bMSCs) are a promising cell source as they are relatively easy to isolate and easy and cheap to grow. To date, we have successfully cultured bMSCs in stirred tank bioreactors[4]. bMSCs will be differentiated towards adipocytes by testing different adipogenic-inducing medium formulations. Additionally, bMSCs will be induced to differentiate to the myogenic lineage by testing different cocktails of growth factors combined with hydrogels of different stiffness to increase myogenic expression through the creation of a three-dimensional environment. Initial studies will be performed in planar cultures at the lab scale, then translated to scalable bioprocesses for industrial production.
Challenges facing the nascent cellular meat industry include sourcing and stabilising cell-lines, and optimising culture conditions; sourcing serum-free culture medium at a scale and cost that allows the product to compete with conventional animal products; optimising bioreactor designs for the specific requirements of the process, and designing tissue scaffolds which both support cell growth and differentiation and optimise the eating quality of the final product[5]. As much of the applied research into this area is being undertaken by private enterprises, there is a scarcity of published research on this topic available to industry, so this foundational research will provide much-needed public access data.
The outcome of this project will be the development of bioprocesses that will aid the industrial production of cultivated (clean) meat with a detailed analysis of their techno-economic feasibility.

References:
1. Gaydhane, M.K., et al., Cultured meat: state of the art and future. Biomanufacturing Reviews, 2018. 3(1).
2. Datar, I. and M. Betti, Possibilities for an in vitro meat production system. Innovative Food Science & Emerging Technologies, 2010. 11(1): p. 13-22.
3. Arshad, M.S., et al., Tissue engineering approaches to develop cultured meat from cells: A mini review. Cogent Food & Agriculture, 2017. 3(1).
4. Hanga, M.P., et al., Bioprocess development for scalable production of cultivated meat. Biotechnol Bioeng, 2020. 117(10): p. 3029-3039.
5. Reiss, J., S. Robertson, and M. Suzuki, Cell Sources for Cultivated Meat: Applications and Considerations throughout the Production Work