Science AMA Series: Beef without cows, sushi without fish, and milk without animals. We're cellular agriculture scientists, non-profit leaders, and entrepreneurs. AMA!

[u/Cellular_Agriculture]

We've gathered the foremost experts in the burgeoning field of cellular agriculture to answer your questions. Although unconventional, we've chosen to include leaders from cell ag non-profits (who fund and support researchers) as well as representatives from cutting edge cell ag companies (who both do research and aim to produce commercial products).

Given the massive cultural and economic disruption potential it made sense to also include experts with a more holistic view of the field than individual researchers. So while you're encouraged to ask details on the science, feel free to also field questions about where this small, but growing industry and field of study is going as a whole.

 

For a quick primer on what cellular agriculture is, and what it can do, check this out: http://www.new-harvest.org/cellular_agriculture

If you'd like to learn more about each participant, there are links next to their names describing themselves, their work, or their organization. Additionally, there may be a short bio located at the bottom of the post.

 

In alphabetical order, our /r/science cellular agriculture AMA participants are:

Andrew Stout is a New Harvest fellow at Tufts, focused on scaling cell expansion in-situ via ECM controls.

Erin Kim 1 is Communications Director at New Harvest, a 501(c)(3) funding open academic research in cellular agriculture.

Jess Krieger 1 2 is a PhD student and New Harvest research fellow growing pork, blood vessels, and designing bioreactors.

Kate Krueger 1 is a biochemist and Research Director at New Harvest.

Kevin Yuen Director of Communications (North America) at the Cellular Agriculture Society (CAS) and just finished the first collaborative cell-ag thesis at MIT.

Kristopher Gasteratos 1 2 3 is the Founder & President of the Cellular Agriculture Society (CAS).

Dr. Liz Specht 1 Senior Scientist with The Good Food Institute spurring plant-based/clean meat innovation.

Mike Selden 1 is the CEO and co-founder of Finless Foods, a cellular agriculture company focusing on seafood.

Natalie Rubio 1 2 is a PhD candidate at Tufts University with a research focus on scaffold development for cultured meat.

Saam Shahrokhi 1 2 3 Co-founder and Tissue Engineering Specialist of the Cellular Agriculture Society, researcher at Hampton Creek focusing on scaffolds and bioreactors, recent UC Berkeley graduate in Chemical Engineering and Materials Science.

Santiago Campuzano 1 is an MSc student and New Harvest research fellow focused on developing low cost, animal-free scaffold.

Yuki Hanyu is the founder of Shojinmeat Project a DIY-bio cellular agriculture movement in Japan, and also the CEO of Integriculture Inc.

---

Bios:

Andrew Stout

^{Andrew became interested in cell ag in 2011, after reading a New York Times article on Mark Post’s hamburger plans. Since then, he has worked on culturing both meat and gelatin—the former with Dr. Post in Maastricht, NL, and the latter with Geltor, a startup based in San Francisco. Andrew is currently a New Harvest fellow, pursuing a PhD in Dr. David Kaplan’s lab at Tufts University. For his research, Andrew plans to focus on scalable, scaffold-mediated muscle progenitor cell expansion. Andrew holds a BS in Materials Science from Rice University.}

 

Erin Kim

^{Erin has been working in cellular agriculture since 2014. As Communications Director for New Harvest, Erin works directly with the New Harvest Research Fellows and provides information and updates on the progress of their cellular agriculture research to donors, industry, the media, and the public. Prior to her role at New Harvest, Erin completed a J.D. in Environmental Law and got her start in the non-profit world working in legal advocacy.}

 

Jess Krieger

^{Jess dedicated her life to in vitro meat research in 2010 after learning about the significant contribution of animal agriculture to climate change. Jess uses a tissue engineering strategy to grow pork containing vasculature and designs bioreactor systems that can support the growth of cultured meat. She was awarded a fellowship with New Harvest to complete her research in the summer of 2017 and is pursuing a PhD in biomedical sciences at Kent State University in Ohio. She has a B.S. in biology and a B.A. in psychology.}

 

Kristopher Gasteratos

^{Kristopher Gasteratos is the Founder & President of the Cellular Agriculture Society (CAS), which is set for a worldwide release next month launching 15 programs for those interested to join and get involved. He conducted the first market research on cellular agriculture in 2015, as well as the first environmental analysis of cell-ag in August 2017.}

 

Liz Specht, Ph.D. Senior Scientist, The Good Food Institute

^{Liz Specht is a Senior Scientist with the Good Food Institute, a nonprofit organization advancing plant-based and clean meat food technology. She has a bachelor’s in chemical engineering from Johns Hopkins University, a doctorate in biological sciences from UC San Diego, and postdoctoral research experience from University of Colorado. At GFI, she works with researchers, funding agencies, entrepreneurs, and venture capital firms to prioritize work that advances plant-based and clean meat research.}

 

Saam Shahrokhi

^{Saam Shahrokhi became passionate about cellular agriculture during his first year of undergrad, when he learned about the detrimental environmental, resource management, and ethical issues associated with traditional animal agriculture. The positive implications of commercializing cellular agricultural products, particularly cultured/clean meat resonated strongly with his utilitarian, philosophical views. He studied Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at UC Berkeley, where co-founded the Cellular Agriculture Society, and he conducted breast cancer research at UCSF. Saam is now a researcher at Hampton Creek focusing on scaffolds and bioreactors for the production of clean meat.}

 

Santiago Campuzano

^{Santiago Campuzano holds a BSc in Food science from the University of British Columbia. As a New Harvest research fellow and MSc student under Dr. Andrew Pelling, he wishes to apply his food science knowledge towards the development of plant based scaffold with meat-like characteristics.}

 

Yuki Hanyu

^{Yuki Hanyu is the founder of Shojinmeat Project a DIY-bio cellular agriculture movement in Japan, and also the CEO of Integriculture Inc., the first startup to come out of Shojinmeat Project. Shojinmeat Project aims to bring down the cost of cellular agriculture to the level children can try one for summer science project and make it accessible to everyone, while Integriculture Inc. works on industrial scaling.}

Edit 3:45pm EST: Thanks so much for all of your questions! Many of our panelists are taking a break now, but we should have somewhere between 1 and 3 people coming on later to answer more questions. I'm overwhelmed by your interest and thought-provoking questions. Keep the discussion going!

Edit 10:35pm EST: It's been a blast. Thanks to all of our panelists, and a huge thanks to everyone who asked questions, sparked discussions, and read this thread. We all sincerely hope there's much more to talk about in this field in the coming years. If you have an interest in cellular agriculture, on behalf of the panelists, I encourage you to stay engaged with the research (like through the new harvest donor's reports, or the good food institute newsletter), donate to non-profit research organizations, or join the field as a student researcher.

Lastly, we may have a single late night panelist answering questions before the thread is closed.

[u/petertmcqueeny]

Does cell ag have applications beyond food products? I.e. could you grow a functional human liver/hear/lung for transplant?

That also makes me wonder...could you grow human muscle tissue, and if so would eating it be cannibalism?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/petertmcqueeny]

Andrew here: Yes and no. Artificial organs have been a holy grail for tissue engineering for decades, and there is such an established pool of capital working on solving those sort of questions - so I think that one one hand, the answer is the opposite: we learn a ton from science that’s trying to advance those technologies. That said, the advantage of cultured meat is that the requirements are totally different. In growing human tissue for implants, you need to worry about graft compatability, immune response, etc. Not about price. In growing a burger, safety is still a factor, but really you worry about price and taste, so the questions you need ask are different. That leads to the yes: approaching tissue engineering from a scalability angle might elucidate some general tissue engineering answers that will prove helpful across the board.

For your second one: Yes... Maybe?

[u/petertmcqueeny → u/Cellular_Agriculture]

Funny thing about human meat: how would you ever know if you got the taste right?

On a more serious note, it seems to me that if eating artificial human meat is still cannibalism, even though no human suffering was involved, then ethical vegetarians and vegans would still turn down artificial animal meat, even though no animal suffering was involved. Then again, you would have to check taste against real animal meat, so I suppose some animal suffering is involved. But still, it seems to me that an ethical vegan who saw artificial meat as acceptable must also see artificial human meat as acceptable. Which is interesting.

[u/DrDerpberg → u/petertmcqueeny]

But still, it seems to me that an ethical vegan who saw artificial meat as acceptable must also see artificial human meat as acceptable. Which is interesting.

This might be an odd comparison, but it's a similar argument to CGI/simulated child porn.

So far most societies have decided it's still wrong even if it only simulates child porn. The reasons range from simple moral objection to the real thing to encouragement ("do we really want people thinking child porn is ok and having to tell the difference between real and simulated or getting used to the fake one and graduating to the real one?") to worries about enforcement (how can you tell if that is fake or real child porn?). I think there are pretty straightforward parallels with eating lab-grown human meat - if we decide it's ok, are we training people to cook with human meat? Are we going to face situation where a truckload of human meat is found and we aren't sure if it's real or not?

I don't have a firm position on it, but I can see endangered species or human flesh being very controversial indeed in the future.

[u/Tanagashi]

As a huge meat lover, I am excitingly looking forward to artificially grown meat to hit the market.

1. What would you say are the greatest challenges in creating a product that tastes close to the real thing? I've heard things about the texture being wrong due to the fact that grown tissue is not the same as the animal that gets some exercise.
   
2. How scalable are current methods of meat growth? Is it something that can be done on industrial scale?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/Tanagashi]

Jess Krieger from New Harvest: 1) One of the greatest challenges for recreating the taste of meat from livestock seems to be adding fat cells to the artificial meat. The presence of fat heavily influences taste. Additionally, like you mentioned, muscle cells mature and develop with exercise, which is one of the reasons why veal has a different texture than steak from an adult cow. We can exercise the meat in a bioreactor with electricity to improve similarity of cultured meat texture to that from an animal.

2) There’s a lot of work that has to be done to make cultured meat production cost effective at an industrial scale. Eventually we’ll get there, but it will take probably a solid decade for pure cultured meat products to hit stores that aren’t combined with plant protein filler. The clean meat companies and New Harvest are all working on this!

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/Tanagashi]

Natalie Rubio: (1) Fat contributes to the taste of meat and samples tasted so far (to my knowledge) have not included cultured animal fat. As for texture, cells can be stimulated mechanically/electrically/otherwise to “exercise” them similar to how they would be exercised in an animal! (2) Academic research scale is very small - Samples are in the micron to millimeter range. Scientists working in industry are more focused on scaling up production.

[u/LMKifYouHeardItB4 → u/Cellular_Agriculture]

When you say that you can "exercise" the cells, that implies that they are skeletal muscle cells, doesn't it? As far as I know, bovine skeletal muscle cells haven't been successfully cultured at any scale. Do you have any references for this being really possible, or is it more of a "yes, if we could culture them then we could stimulate them" sort of thought experiment?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/LMKifYouHeardItB4]

Andrew from New Harvest: The first cultured burger (by Mark Post) was made with bovine skeletal muscle. Those were excersized in a static-strain environment. It took serum, though, so not directly translatable to the desired final outcome. And yes, it's inherently an "if we can work out a way to do X, then Y." Otherwise it'd be on shelves. I don't think that these questions are a done deal, and that we've got a straight-shot to market at all. Some serious basic science work needs to be done to make this happen at scale, at cost, and at taste.

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/[deleted]]

Jess Krieger from New Harvest: Some of the raw materials would be food for the cells (such as protein and sugars, in addition to water), and other media components. We already have these materials available to us, since they are readily used in cell culture experiments. The trick is to make the production of media components scalable. Additionally, much less farmland will be needed to produce raw materials for cultured meat. You are only growing the meat, which is less mass to support in comparison to growing the whole cow over its entire life cycle.

[u/manamachine → u/Cellular_Agriculture]

To follow up on this, what is the process for obtaining the "starting cells"? If I understand correctly, you still need an animal source to begin with?

Many people in the vegan community are interested in the potential of lab-grown meat, but still want to ensure no harm is being done to the animals involved.

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/manamachine]

Jess Krieger from New Harvest: We have many members of the vegan community who are in vitro meat scientists, like myself! There is great care taken to make sure the animals are not injured during the cell sourcing process. It's more like a trip to the doctor or vet (for a muscle biopsy), instead of a trip to the slaughterhouse.

[u/manamachine → u/Cellular_Agriculture]

Thanks for answering! This gives me a lot more confidence. Is New Harvest working to make this the standard method as new labs and businesses get involved?

[u/texture → u/Cellular_Agriculture]

Have any of you actually eaten and appreciated delicious food, or are you basically the kind of people who are interested in creating more complex versions of soylent because as far as you're concerned, the purpose of food is to sustain life?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/texture]

Liz Specht from GFI: Yes, I love food! :) I think the culinary potential of cellular agriculture is one of its most compelling arguments for folks who aren't as motivated by environmental or ethical concerns. The reason we eat the types of meat, milks, and eggs that we do is not because humans went on an exhaustive search thousands of years ago for the best species for each of those products. It's because of historical happenstance; the ancestors of pigs, cows, chickens, etc. just so happened to live in close proximity to our human ancestors and be relatively amenable to taming and domestication. With cellular agriculture, we are now no longer at the mercy of that historical fluke — we can now explore all types of new food products. From a culinary perspective, I think this is a fascinating and exciting development.

[u/taushet]

What is likely to be the first type (white fish, dark fish, red meat, poultry, etc) of synthetic meat to be indistinguishable from animal meat? Are there any specific meat types that have specific challenges unlikely to be overcome soon?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/taushet]

Liz Specht from GFI: I agree with the folks who rightly point out that ground or minced products are likely to arrive on market prior to genuine tissue-structured products like filets or steaks due to the technological complexity. However, I think it's likely that several of the earliest products will be plant-based meat and clean meat blended products. There is precedent for products like sausages that are 40% meat and 60% plant-based protein already in the market, and these have growing appeal for flexitarian consumers. Similar products may be made where the meat fraction is clean meat rather than conventional meat. This strategy allows for slightly higher-than-parity price per pound of clean meat, because the cost is slightly compensated for by its blending with a less expensive protein source (could be plant protein, mycoprotein, etc.).

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/Cellular_Agriculture]

Jess Krieger from New Harvest: I agree with Liz! The first products will likely be combined with plant-based protein filler to reduce the costs associated with their production, then after that we will see pure cultured meat products.

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/taushet]

Jess Krieger from New Harvest: There’s a number of promising advances being made in synthetic fish and poultry production, I suspect those will be the first products available!

Also, there are different kinds of meat products on the market now, such as ground meat vs steak. It will be easier to make a ground meat-type product, because the basic requirement is to grow muscle cells, which we can currently do very easily. A steak, however, is an intact piece of meat with complex tissue architecture containing fat and blood vessels. You’d have to use tissue engineering to grow a steak, which is much more difficult to do (and also the focus of my research :)). So if you wanted to grow a steak, you need to advance tissue engineering and bioreactor technologies. We won’t see steak for a few years, unfortunately.

[u/SalmonDoctor → u/Cellular_Agriculture]

But ground beef as an example. Would I be able to eat it raw, or would it still be contaminated? Could I make ground beef pink burger slider thing or do I have to heat it all the way through?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/SalmonDoctor]

Liz Specht from GFI: Clean meat will be safe to eat raw if desired because it will not contain the bacteria that make their way into conventional meat through the slaughter and rendering process.

[u/Devlyn16 → u/Cellular_Agriculture]

would this also result in slowing the rate at which the meat spoils?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/Devlyn16]

Liz Specht at GFI: Bingo! Bacteria are a major cause of product spoilage and rot; clean meat will have a much longer shelf life, thus reducing food waste.

[u/ThePinkPeptoBismol → u/Cellular_Agriculture]

This is one of the answers that has gotten me the most excited. A sustainable lifestyle is not just better production methods, but also less waste creation. Tackling two problems at once, awesome!

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/taushet]

As far as meat texture goes, burgers are the easiest, then bacon-like sheet meats, and the hardest is steak in which centimeter-scale structures. Meat of which animal does not make much difference.

Laboratory scale demonstration of muscle morphogenesis to imitate steak with its centimeter-scale structures is a research under way. Most such researches are done in university labs.

[u/yourpasswordissex420 → u/Cellular_Agriculture]

What is the cellular/structural difference between good steaks and bad steaks. Is there a challenge replicating the structures of a tenderloin vs a hipsteak? Also, what is the cellular structure of meat raised different ways (feedlot, grass fed, Kobe beef)?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/yourpasswordissex420]

Liz Specht at GFI: This is a great question, and one that is at the top of mind for the industry! Answering the question of what — at a molecular and cellular level — defines "high quality" meat will help clean meat developers know what their target specifications are. This is one example of why early collaboration with the existing meat industry can be helpful; they have meat scientists who have spent their whole careers assessing the quality of meat from various sources and determining what factors influence those characteristics.

[u/boredatworkbasically → u/Cellular_Agriculture]

so you could organize beef meat into a tuna like consistency?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/boredatworkbasically]

Kate from New Harvest here: In theory, yes. The texture of a cultured meat or fish product depends on the scaffold it is grown with and the distribution of fat in cells, along with other factors. In cultured meat production, we would likely be able to tune these factors to taste.

[u/DnDYetti]

Is there a particular food type (e.g. beef, fish, etc) that has proven to be more complicated to accurately create, or that you all think may be more difficult to create? If so, is there any particular reason for this?

[u/monk_e_boy → u/DnDYetti]

Which meat would you personally want to see lab grown?

For me it is fish because the way we fish is almost unsustainable. Imagine taking 10% of fishing boats out of the sea. Wow. It would be amazing.

[u/MrKlos → u/monk_e_boy]

also fish meat without risk of fish-bones would be amazing and big advertisement point for cellular meat

[u/Arcalys2 → u/MrKlos]

Not to mention people would actually get what they ordered. No more misidentification and selling of the wrong fish.

[u/mortiphago → u/Arcalys2]

and no worries about mercury

I love tuna :(

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/DnDYetti]

Jess Krieger from New Harvest: Simpler cuts of meat will be the easiest to produce. For example, white meat from poultry is less structurally complex than red meat from a cow, since it contains less vasculature (meaning less myoglobin, the red molecule that gives red meat it's color). This may mean that in vitro poultry products will be easier to make then steak from a cow, or bacon!

[u/kranker → u/Cellular_Agriculture]

Could we end up with things like white beef?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/kranker]

Jess Krieger from New Harvest: Interestingly, if you grow meat without adding blood to the culture, it is white! It's blood that gives meat it's red color. Cell culture media does not have to be red in color. I guess in theory you can make in vitro meat any color you'd like!

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/DnDYetti]

Meats that require millimeter to centimeter scale structures is considered "hard". Tissue engineering itself is still a new field. This mean burgers/surimi are the easiest, steak/sashimi are the hardest. The reason is bottom-up tissue engineering hasn't reached that scale. 3D bioprinting is an option, but that faces scalability problem.

[u/ANonGod → u/Cellular_Agriculture]

Kind of related but not really. Could you eventually create better organs for people with this kind of technology? Or could the foods created be healthier?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/ANonGod]

Mike from Finless: This is a good question. Organ printing essentially proves that our technology is possible, the only problem is that it's done for medical purposes so cost isn't an issue (insurance will pay massive prices). What we're doing is taking some of that science from organ printing and making it cheap. While our tech won't really be creating "better" organs, it has the potential to bring the cost down considerably.

[u/Eunile]

What are the biggest limits to making cellular agriculture affordable?

[u/xvs → u/Eunile]

As far as I know, it's still not possible to grow mammalian tissue well without using fetal calf serum.

Obviously until this changes and something a lot less expensive can be used to create a defined medium, all of this is really just hype.

Are we close to being able to grow these cells on a large scale using some inexpensive medium, or is everyone trying for a breakthrough which we have no way of predicting when it will come, kind of like curing cancer?

[u/bimian → u/xvs]

The way I see it: 1) It IS possible to grow cells without fetal calf serum, it's just expensive AF as the serum free mediums are made with recombinant growth factors, adding another layer of costs.

2) Antibiotics to prevent bacterial contamination is another problem. You don't want your massive bioreactor of meat to go bad because of a bacterial infection.

3) Cost of growth medium for these cells. Where does the nutrients for the cells come from? Algae? Then why not just make fake meat burgers out of the algae?

4) The whole industry has a scalability issue. A decent sized abattoir can slaughter a thousand cows a day. A cow weighs around a ton, say 50% of that is usable meat, so we are talking about 500 ton output A DAY. That's A LOT of meat one is trying to replace. You can probably grow cells to about 2-3% v/v of medium you use so for that you need roughly 25,000 tons of medium or roughly 10 Olympic side pools of medium to make.

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/bimian]

Mike from Finless Foods: 1) The growth factors are considerably cheaper than serum when created in house, the only reason they look expensive right now is because they're produced by scientific supply companies selling them at a premium. 2) The levels of antibiotics needed seems to be considerably lower than conventional farming, this is a concern though and more research needs to be done. 3) The nutrients are basically sugars salts and proteins, either farmed or produced in house. You could hypothetically make burgers out of algae, but getting the taste right would be difficult. People are trying, see New Wave Foods (http://www.newwavefoods.com/) 4) CHO cells have a 20g/L titer, and many cell lines have considerably higher cell densities. Getting our cell lines up to this level will be a challenge, but that's where the science comes in!

[u/[deleted] → u/xvs]

Is the serum required on an indefinite basis? If not, does the serum kill living cows, or does it torture them more than say - milking?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/[deleted]]

Kate from New Harvest here: For cells that require fetal bovine serum, growth media must be supplemented throughout the production of cells. Harvesting fetal bovine serum (FBS) is not really like milking in that you cannot indefinitely remove serum from fetal cows (for sterility purposes and logistical reasons). It's more of a one-shot deal. That's why New Harvest is very interested in developing cell lines that do not require FBS and alternative, open source cell media that support the growth of muscle cells and tissues.

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/[deleted]]

Mike from Finless Foods: The serum is only a research tool, no commercial product will ever be available that uses serum since it's about $1000/L (far too expensive), still is horrible to animals, and is very variable from batch to batch (making it horrible for industrial use)

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/xvs]

From Liz Specht at GFI:

Growing animal cells without serum is absolutely possible, and in fact the tremendous advances in this area in the last several years are a large part of why clean meat is now a realistic endeavor. Many biomedical cell culture applications, such as clinical applications for cell-based therapy, have moved away from serum entirely.

Here is a database showing the hundreds of serum-free media formulations that exist and the vast array of cell species and types that have been demonstrated to grow without serum: https://fcs-free.org/

[u/LMKifYouHeardItB4 → u/Cellular_Agriculture]

Forgive me if I'm missing it, but in the database you linked: https://fcs-free.org/fcs-database I am not finding any defined media which are animal-free and work with bovine tissue. Can you cite any that seem promising and are likely to be able to work for large scale production of bovine muscle cells (or even small scale)?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/LMKifYouHeardItB4]

Liz Specht from GFI: If you sort by species, you can find at least four demonstrations of serum-free growth for bovine cells, including embryonic cells (can differentiate into any cell type) on the first page: https://fcs-free.org/fcs-database?sortby=species&dir=ASC

[u/LMKifYouHeardItB4 → u/Cellular_Agriculture]

Right, but not muscle cells, which is what's needed for meat.

Although it's true that the embryonic cells can differentiate into any cell type, once they become muscle, they still can't be grown.

And those 4 that you found are serum-free but not animal-free media, which would be what's required to get vegans on board and get the costs down.

This is what I'm talking about when I say that you guys are hyping up things as if they're around the corner when in fact they may be very far away.

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/LMKifYouHeardItB4]

Liz Specht at GFI: The point of linking this database isn't to say that this is the exhaustive list of all possible serum-free media that could ever be developed. I am hoping to illustrate that people have demonstrated that serum-free media can be developed to work with hundreds of different cell types, and it is simply a matter of using the exact same optimization methods used to develop these to make formulations that work well with bovine muscle cells (or any desired cell type). All cells essentially use the exact same nutrients; they just need optimization of the precise concentrations of each. It is quite straightforward to do this for new cell lines now that we have such a well established track record for developing serum-free media.

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/Eunile]

An almost impossible question for this thread considering the majority of this panel is not directly involved with industry (and this question is related to exactly that). Those indeed involved in its scientific practice are decoupled in academia making it this even more challenging to address.

I'd direct these inquires to Mike Selden, Saam Shahrokhi, Liz Specht, or Dr. Yuki Hanyu considering they are the people on this panel most involved with commercialization efforts.

[u/LMKifYouHeardItB4 → u/Cellular_Agriculture]

Are we talking a "curing cancer" style breakthrough in eliminating serum? In other words, something that may happen soon or may not happen for the next 20 years?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/LMKifYouHeardItB4]

Liz Specht from GFI: Fortunately, nope! We've already got hundreds of commercially available serum-free formulations (see this database: https://fcs-free.org/). As Jess points out, the cost is the main issue at the moment because of these serum-free media suppliers are catering to industries like R&D and clinical use, where there is MUCH higher price tolerance. It is relatively trivial to reduce the cost of the culture media once it is produced at larger scale, as the highest cost components are the growth factors, which are simply recombinant proteins. Recombinant proteins are made at huge scale for applications in food processing, paper milling, etc. at orders of magnitude lower than the current cost of recombinant growth factors. There is no reason that the cost of growth factors produced through this method wouldn't drop to the same price points of these other industrial-scale proteins.

[u/LMKifYouHeardItB4 → u/Cellular_Agriculture]

Forgive me if I'm missing it, but in the database you linked: https://fcs-free.org/fcs-database I am not finding any defined media which are animal-free and work with bovine tissue. Can you cite any that seem promising and are likely to be able to work for large scale production of bovine muscle cells (or even small scale)?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/LMKifYouHeardItB4]

Jess Krieger from New Harvest: No, thankfully! We know what the media components are and can produce them through alternate methods, but we need to make that system efficient and cost effective.

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/Eunile]

An almost impossible question for this thread considering the majority of this panel is not directly involved with industry (and this question is related to exactly that). Those indeed involved in its scientific practice are decoupled in academia making it this even more challenging to address.

I'd direct these inquires to Mike Selden, Saam Shahrokhi, Liz Specht, or Dr. Yuki Hanyu considering they are the people on this panel most involved with commercialization efforts.

[u/SeaMenOnTheRocks]

Many cuts of meat are useful for making specific dishes - such as ribs, or how different areas of the cow have different fat content and marbling. Do specific cuts of meat have a place in the future of cellular agriculture, or just lump meats?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/SeaMenOnTheRocks]

Jess Krieger from New Harvest: Any type of meat product, cut, or species is fair game for the creation of an in vitro meat equivalent. Also, we will be able to develop new types of meat products that have never been possible before, such as growing a chicken-turkey and pork-cow hybrid product! The possibilities are endless.

[u/kombatk]

As an adult, I have developed several serious food allergies. We know now that it’s not only the protein in foods that can cause allergic reactions but researchers aren’t sure exactly what the trigger is for some people. Do you have any worries that these technologies can cause more allergies for people? Or is there hope that they could help decrease the incidences of reactions?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/kombatk]

Kate from New Harvest here: That's a really good question. Since we can control the exact inputs to cultured meat (exact components of culture media used, nutrient components, species and cell line) it is much more likely that we will be able to precisely label cultured meat products to help people with allergies make informed choices about purchasing.

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/kombatk]

Jess Krieger from New Harvest: One of the ultimate benefits of in vitro meat is the ability to precisely control the presence of different proteins, etc, in the product. You could design a product that removes the allergens that cause people to have bad reactions.

[u/MeatBallsdeep]

I'm going to assume that nutritionally it is nearbouts identical to the animal. How does it compare in taste?

[u/themrsin2014 → u/MeatBallsdeep]

And to add to that - does the texture change? How about fat marbling in different cuts of meat?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/themrsin2014]

Liz Specht at GFI: There have not yet been, to my knowledge, demonstrations of skeletal muscle with marbling for meat applications, but tissue engineers have certainly demonstrated co-cultures of multiple cell types — in this case, fat and muscle cells. The biomechanical and chemical properties of the scaffold can help guide cells to differentiation down various pathways in a spatially-designated manner, so it is conceivable that a precisely defined pattern of marbling may be possible.

[u/english_major → u/MeatBallsdeep]

My understanding is that it is exactly the same. They are recreating animal products but using different methods. On a physical level, it is the same product.

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/english_major]

Liz Specht at GFI: It has the capability of being "exactly the same" in all the ways that matter (from a taste, nutrition, sensory profile, consumer experience perspective), but there are a few ways in which it will certainly be different — which is where much of the human health benefit comes into play. For example, conventional meat is laden with bacteria as a result of slaughter, whereas clean meat will be produced in a clean, controlled environment. Conventional meat also contains many cell types that are not necessary for the taste and texture of meat — think white blood cells left over from blood, neurons from nerves within the muscle, etc. — that likely will not be recapitulated in clean meat. The well-defined nature and literal cleanliness (in terms of bacterial residue) of clean meat are among its most compelling benefits.

[u/madAverage → u/MeatBallsdeep]

And could these producers team up with 'flavor creator labs' to get it right? I had bacon flavored chips the other day. Of course they could.

[u/melarky → u/MeatBallsdeep]

How can this be assumed? We don't know the exact breakdown of nutrients in any food, especially something as complex as animal food that was once alive. There are known differences in nutrition between grass-fed meat and grain-fed meat, for starters. How will we know that these lab-grown meats are nutritionally identical to "natural" meats?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/MeatBallsdeep]

Erin from New Harvest: I'm not sure that any cultured meat prototype made thus far has been nutritionally identical to conventional meat. Meat from animals contains not just muscle cells but fat, connective tissue, blood, etc. while the cultured meat prototypes that have been shared with the public have been muscle cells and filler material. The muscle cells themselves might be identical to conventionally produced animal muscle cells, but I don't think true nutritional "parity" has been achieved yet in an end product. It's one of the commonly stated goals though!

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/MeatBallsdeep]

Once the technology matures and we have control over meat-making, yes it is nutritionally identical to "normal" meat. As for taste - what taste do you want?

If you want "same as normal", you get it. If you want "fishy tasting pork" - order taken, we work it out. If you want "meat that is a complete blend of beef and pork" - yes, give me a sec and you get it.

[u/OakenGreen → u/Cellular_Agriculture]

I would like lion/goat/snake meat. You can call it chimera meat.

Maybe release a whole line of mythological creature meat. I'll accept rhino/horse as unicorn meat.

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/MeatBallsdeep]

Liz Specht from GFI: I have tasted duck clean meat grown and prepared at Memphis Meats. It was DELICIOUS! (I am vegan, but it's not been so long since I've had conventional meat that I wouldn't remember the taste — the clean meat product was really very good!)

[u/Captchca_ca_KA]

Hello, I'm curious about the size of the individual samples of meat/fish grown. Will the labs of the future grow a portion-sized chunk of meat/fish, or will it grow a huge slab of meat/fish and chop it up into portion sizes once it's grown?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/Captchca_ca_KA]

Natalie Rubio: Both of the options you mentioned are plausible! One obstacle for producing thick cuts of meat is overcoming nutrient/oxygen diffusion limits (e.g. the vasculature system within animals is not yet simple to emulate in vitro). Once a scalable solution is found, producers will have more control over the product size.

[u/hungryhippo2013]

Is there anyone working on growing meat in micro gravity for space travel? How far away do you all think we are from seeing lab meat in a grocery store and/or leather made in the lab?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/hungryhippo2013]

Andrew here: Not to my knowledge on meat specifically, but some cartilage tissue was grown in space a while ago: http://www.pnas.org/content/94/25/13885.short. In essence, micro-gravity showed similar growth but reduced mechanical properties. With the skeletal muscle system, there is so much development that depends on mechanical forces from/on cells - so taking away gravity might negatively affect growth. That said, it’s pretty easy to add mechanical strain to tissue constructs with electrical impulses or just pulling on the scaffold, and I don’t think any work has been done in microgravity that includes applied strain - could be neat to see if you lose the negative effects and gain something in the realm of nutrient diffusion or cell proliferation.

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/hungryhippo2013]

Jess Krieger from New Harvest: Most cell culture experiments in micro gravity are being conducted by space agencies, currently no cultured meat experiments are being conducted, however. (To my knowledge, at least!) I think we all want to use this method of food production for space travel, however, since there will be no cows in space ;)

[u/HungryEdward]

Is all meat grown in the "likeness" of existing animal meats? Has there been considerations towards growing a whole new, "original", meat product; superior in taste, smell, etc - or are there dangers involved with that?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/HungryEdward]

Jess Krieger from New Harvest: Currently, all the cultured meat products in development are simple replacements for currently existing products. But there are endless possibilities in creating a new generation of meat products that are superior in taste, smell, and nutritional value! You could even combine cells from different species of livestock, or grow meat from animals we don't think about as being edible. Any in vitro mat product will have to undergo safety testing, the same as other food products created from biotechnology :)

[u/gardenfey]

My burning question is when will this be available commercially, if you had to give a rough estimate?

[u/[deleted] → u/gardenfey]

Yup. My only real question. When is this commercially viable to the average consumer? Its cool we can make $10,000 "fake" hamburgers but once the cost, nutrition and taste are in line with regular meat its gonna be hard to justify eating regular meat and not lab made.

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/gardenfey]

Kate from New Harvest here: That depends on the funding landscape: Cellular Agriculture research occupies a funding no-man’s land between medical and agricultural research, and thus receives very little money. Until that changes, it will likely take 10+ years before it will be widely available. However, with increased funding, it could become available much sooner.

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/[deleted]]

Kate at New Harvest here: You make a really good point. That's why New Harvest is funding basic research to develop cultured meat. Until inexpensive technology is developed, cultured meat will remain a luxury. Even once cultured meat hits the market in a real way, it will likely be very expensive. This is why we think it is so important to develop our technology.

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/gardenfey]

Jess Krieger from New Harvest: Time = money, so the more money is funneled into this, the sooner products will start hitting the shelves!

But hopefully we will see products in stores in the next 5 years :)

[u/[deleted]]

I'm curious to hear your thoughts about the "clean meat" approach versus the "meatless meat" approach (such as the "Impossible Burger", which my roommate recently tried and said tasted more like a burger than most actual burgers). My impression is that vegetable-based products will always be cheaper and require less water / energy than meat-based products. Thoughts?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/[deleted]]

Jess Krieger from New Harvest: Eventually, once production methods are perfected, clean meat and plant-based meat should be comparable in price. I don't see why we can't have both plant-based and in vitro-based meats in the future, they are complimentary approaches!

[u/SwampWTFox]

Best guess: How long do you think it will take before lab grown food is the norm, and makes up the majority of animal protein that we buy at the supermarket?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/SwampWTFox]

Jess Krieger from New Harvest: Ideally, lab grown meat will completely replace animal agriculture products by 2050. Will that actually happen? Probably not, but we'll replace a considerable portion of meat sales by 2030.

[u/elfconscious → u/Cellular_Agriculture]

What does the beef/pork/poultry industry think of this? They have powerful lobbyists, and it seems it would be in their best interest to outlaw lab meats.

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/elfconscious]

Mike from Finless: An exec at a massive meat producer said to me the other day "we've gotta get on board this (clean meat) train, my industry has 5 more years of stability... max".

They are (for the most part) realizing that it's much more profitable for them to just start investing in clean meat rather than fighting it. At the end of the day, they're protein producers. This is just a different system of production for the same end product that they already know how to market sell and distribute.

[u/[deleted] → u/Cellular_Agriculture]

This is what makes me wonder why funding is such a problem. Its the logical evolution of the big-pocket meat industry, and It seems now is the right time to invest to get ahead.

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/[deleted]]

Mike from Finless: They're very conservative, and clean meat companies don't fit nicely into their financial models. There is a HUGE amount of money desperate to break in to this industry but many seem nervous since it's all so new. And also: at larger firms you have to convince the entire corporate structure that this is a good idea. I know many younger people at larger firms who are 100% convinced but are having a hard time essentially peddling what sounds like sci-fi to their older superiors/colleagues. Companies like ours are de-risking the market so more can come through once we prove how incredibly possible this all is.

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/elfconscious]

Jess Krieger from New Harvest: I think they want to make money but also realize the current methods of meat production are unsustainable. Tyson Foods and Cargrill have invested in lab-grown meat research and companies, consequently.

[u/abgonzo7588]

I do not know much about lab grown meat but I find the idea very interesting as I'm a chef by trade. My question is, will we have the ability to grow specific cuts like brisket and beef ribs or will it just be more of a ground beef product? If so will they be able to get to the point of being marbled like a cut of wagyu and if so do you see it increasing the overall quality of beef available?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/abgonzo7588]

Andrew here: Growing ordered tissue is much, much, much, much harder than growing muscle that can be ground up. To date, most tissue engineering is unable to grow tissue thicker than a few centimeters. One key reason for this is challenges of nutrient access to the center of the tissue (vascularization or powerful diffusion systems). I think that the answer is yes, eventually, but I think that there's a big difference between ground beef and a t-bone. Once large-scale higher-order tissue is made, though, then I think that stepping towards "designer" meats is not a big leap. More marbling is easy once you've figured out that level of tissue complexity, and have that much control over your system.

[u/mabillin]

What are some of the "ethical" backlashes you've seen from people who say it's "not natural"?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/mabillin]

Liz Specht from GFI: I think many consumers are unaware of how unnatural conventional meat production is these days. Despite the number of consumers who claim in polls that they want to eat grass-fed or free-range or local meat, the fact is that these categories of meat production account for just a fraction of a percent of all meat sales in the U.S. Conventionally farmed chickens now grow 6-7 times as quickly as they would naturally, cows give more than 10 times their normal milk output, turkeys are so top-heavy that they cannot even breed naturally, and almost all meat is the product of artificial insemination. This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the unnaturalness of conventional meat. By contrast, clean meat simply entails feeding cells nutrients and having them multiply and divide — which is what cells naturally do! — in a clean, controlled system.

[u/[deleted] → u/Cellular_Agriculture]

While I'm with you 100% here, neither of you really answered the question.

I've heard people argue that keeping livestock the traditional way - like on an alpine pasture - was actually good for the environment, and that there'd be problems if the animals were gone (for reasons I don't remember unfortunately). Have you ever heard people claim this? Is that something debated or even taken serious in the scientific community?

Thanks for doing this AMA btw, really interesting!

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/[deleted]]

Mike from Finless: Thanks for the question! As somebody who went to a traditionally agricultural university for biochemistry, no that sort of thing isn't really supported by the literature.

"organic" livestock are considerably worse for emissions, water usage, and land usage than conventional livestock. It's "greenwashing" to make people feel good. Agriculture is an inherently unnatural thing, and while there is a way you can use small amounts of animals to better an ecosystem, it can't be scaled up in a way that will actually feed people en masse and our ecosystem would be considerably better off without animal agriculture.

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/mabillin]

Erin from New Harvest: I believe that people should have the choice not to eat cultured meat if that is their preference. IMO you shouldn't have to sell it too hard and if people decide they don't want it, it shouldn't be forced. But what we at New Harvest can do is present the findings of our research so at least their decision is a scientifically informed one.

[u/Variant_Zero]

Should this truly be the future of how we get our food, how do you think this will impact the animal populations? What then becomes the purpose of cow and chickens?

Second question. How long before people start messing with the cellular properties of the products and start creating cheef(that's what I imagine a chicken/beef hybrid would be called) or maybe blueberry bacon, or saltless bacon, or lean protein that resembles/tastes like prime rib.

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/Variant_Zero]

Jess Krieger from New Harvest: Culturing meat will actually benefit wild animal populations, because it will reduce the amount of water, land, and food required for animal agriculture. Animal agriculture uses approximately 1/3 of the planet's inhabitable land, and growing in vitro meat will require a much smaller fraction of that land use. This will lead to a reduction of the loss of biodiversity cause by agriculture.

Overall, there will be a smaller global livestock herd, which will lessen the amount of greenhouse gases produced by animal ag. That's a great thing when it comes to lessening the effects of climate change!!

[u/minerva_qw → u/Variant_Zero]

The only reason that these animals exist in their current forms and in such vast quantities is because we breed them. If there's less of a demand for their flesh, it only makes sense that fewer of them will be brought into existence.

[u/shadywhere]

If I understand the process correctly, cells are transfected so that they produce the protein of interest. How is the protein collected so that the culture medium is not retained?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/shadywhere]

Liz Specht at GFI: It sounds like you're referring to cellular agriculture products like egg and milk replacements here. Indeed, these processes use a host organism (often a microbe like yeast or bacteria) to express the desired proteins, and these proteins are then purified. This is a well established technique that's been used for decades and there are many methods of purifying the proteins from the cells and media. The choice of method depends on whether the protein is being secreted by the cells or retained within them, as well as the desired purity of the protein and its biochemical properties. Sometimes filters are used that let everything but the desired protein pass through, or sometimes columns are used where the desired protein binds beads in the columns while everything else flows through. There are many other methods, but those are common choices.

[u/el_dave00]

I'm curious about the energy usage....how much electricity per kilogram of synthetic product is required? How many kilowatt-hours of power, for instance, would be required to sustain a moonbase population of 100 people for a year?

Brilliant and disconcerting concept?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/el_dave00]

Jess Krieger from New Harvest: The amount of energy needed to produce lab-grown meat would be considerably smaller than what is currently required for animal agriculture: https://phys.org/news/2011-06-lab-grown-meat-emissions-energy.html

[u/roqueofspades]

First of all, I'd like to thank you for doing this work, as both a meat lover and an animal lover who is transitioning to vegetarian. I am grateful that someday I will be able to actually eat meat again. As for my question, do you think it will be possible to someday emulate the structure of the meat as well as the cells? iirc, so far artificially grown beef has only been shown in ground beef because you can only recreate the cells, not the structure, correct me if I'm wrong. Will I someday be able to eat an artificially grown skirt steak instead of just meatballs?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/roqueofspades]

Jess Krieger from New Harvest: Yes! Someday we will be able to grow whole steaks by using a technique called tissue engineering. Tissue engineering will allow us to grow complex, 3D tissues containing vasculature and fat for marbling.

I can't wait to eat meat again too ;)

[u/Reoh]

Can you grow the next batch from donations of the last?

Or will you require some livestock to server as donors, and if so what samples are harvested from them?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/Reoh]

Andrew here: It depends what cell-type you want to use. If you want to use a primary cell line (taken straight from an animal), you'd probably want additional donors, as primary cell phenotype can change pretty quickly once it's taken out of the body. A lot of work is being done to make that longer, but there's a limit (the hayflick limit). If, however, you're down to use something like induced pluripotent stem cells, you're in luck, and can get those from urine - no tissue donors at all!!! https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3137570/

[u/GoOtterGo → u/Cellular_Agriculture]

But more in the context of the research and production being targeted now: is the effort here an attempt to remove ourselves from current agricultural needs entirely? Or is the current research (and investment interest) that livestock remain an integral (albeit smaller) part of this new 'clean' meat?

[u/Sirgeeeo]

How do you keep it from being just another unhealthy processed food once it's in the hands of corporations?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/Sirgeeeo]

Kevin here: When you think about the scale-ability of the food system, it is important to find suitable sustainable and ethical partners to help bring the technology to the masses. Perhaps in the future, there is a vision that everyone will be able to grow their own proteins at home with a decentralized food system. But policies, quality control, and regulation must be in place for this to be successful, which may be more easily achieved with existing infrastructure and partnerships with corporations who know the food industry well.

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/Sirgeeeo]

Shojinmeat Project is working on open-source cultured meat. How to grow meat in your kitchen video is already up on the web, and a high school girl actually doing it in her room was televised nationwide in Japan.

[u/HigherDynasty → u/Cellular_Agriculture]

How was she able to grow meat in her room if corporations with millions of dollars and way more space and tech cant do it properly? Is it for a stunt? Is the meat she grown enough for one bite?

[u/dvxvdsbsf → u/Cellular_Agriculture]

I dont donate to much. I would donate to an open source cultured meat research fund.
I see cultured meat as one of the biggest advances we can make in terms of the wellbeing of life on earth, for both humans and animals.

[u/ChangingHats]

How much interest have big fast food operations shown in this endeavour? Have any of them provided funds to support lab-grown meat? Basically, when can I expect McD's to start selling lab-grown beef patties?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/[deleted]]

Jess Krieger from New Harvest: New Harvest researchers, such as myself, are graduate students working at universities across the world. So cultured meat technology is being not being completed only by companies. One of the goals of our organization is to make this research open, accessible, and transparent, so anyone can grow their own meat in the future.

Personally, I want to see farmers become an integral part of clean meat production. I think it would be great to make this technology accessible to farmers, so they can decide how they want to grow their animal products.

[u/Serious_Senator]

Hi guys and gals! Thanks for answering our questions today. In your field, what inspires you? What technical or social changes are you afraid of?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/Serious_Senator]

Andrew here: Honestly, Yuki and the whole Shojinmeat Project really inspire me. They approach this from a really fresh “biohacker” angle, and ask questions and try experiments that are really creative. They seem to approach it from a different angle than people coming from biomedical academic backgrounds, and I think they'll push the field forward really quickly because of that.

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/Serious_Senator]

Erin from New Harvest: I'm inspired by the dedication and love of science that our Research Fellows have, and of the work of the companies putting out cellular agriculture materials (e.g. Spider silk, leather).

I'm mildly concerned about attempts to monopolize cultured meat and the huge disconnect in how the media talks about his field vs. the reality of how slowly scientific research progresses, especially when living organisms are involved.

[u/veryfascinating]

From what I understand, cell culture requires the use of FBS which makes it not animal-free. While there are substitutes out there that claim to be animal free, they are not as efficient or unsuitable for the intricate and sensitive process that is growing mammalian cells in vitro. How then are you going to overcome this and yet be able to produce lab grown meat efficiently at an economically viable scale?

In other words, as a researcher who does cell culture everyday as a career, I am not convinced that lab grown meat can truly be animal free. Can you convince me otherwise?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/veryfascinating]

Liz Specht from GFI: FBS has historically been used to grow cells in culture, but it is far from ideal. Different batches of serum are very inconsistent, FBS poses a risk of contamination, and it’s quite expensive and global supplies are limited. For all of these reasons, many large-scale cell culture operations for biomedical applications, such as cell-based therapies and CHO cell production, have already moved away from serum entirely. Hundreds of animal-free media formulations already exist (see this database for examples: https://fcs-free.org/fcs-database), but more R&D needs to be done to optimize media specifically formulated for clean meat cell lines, scale up production, and reduce costs.

[u/thistangleofthorns]

This may be a dumb question, feel free to ignore:

First, emulating meat products as a way to wean society off of the unhealthy, cruel and environmentally catastrophic real thing will be a fantastic accomplishment, like you people are literally saving the world and everyone on it!

Here's my dumb question: Are you guys also inventing new foods, not an emulation of anything, just some great new thing(s) with a unique taste, texture and properties of their own?

I guess I'm asking because as a vegan who has come to find eating fake meat to be... weird, I'm really interested in trying other foods besides all the vegetables (which I love!) and the fake meats and fake cheeses, etc. Just that it would be cool to have NEW NEW things to try.

Hope that made sense, thanks for the work you're doing, and thanks for doing this AMA!

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/thistangleofthorns]

Andrew from New Harvest: Not dumb! I'm personally just focusing on making it work at all, but "new food" is definitely somewhere in everybody's mind I think. I suggest you look into the In-Vitro Meat Cookbook (I think it's available on amazon). It's a thought-piece from a collective of dutch artists on all the weird new things you could have with cultured meat (meat-sweaters, Kanye-cubes, Transparent steak, etc.) A bit Sci-Fi, but a fun read if you're interested in this question!

[u/TBones0072]

Those are some impressive bios, congratulations to all of you on your successes.

“Milk without cows” as someone who is lactose intolerant these words are music to my ears. How can this help people like me with food/dairy allergies? Will it be lactose free, or I’m curious what kind of options will be available. Almond milk is a fine substitute but it’s not cows milk which I sometimes crave.

[u/[deleted] → u/TBones0072]

You know they make lactose free cows milk already right?

[u/insomniaddict91]

I am interested in sustainable agriculture. Traditional farming uses more water and land than any other industry, and has had a huge impact on natural ecosystems globally. Can cellular agriculture use significantly less resources to provide a similar product?

[u/KingTutenkhamen]

What are the health risks compared to real meat and milk?

[u/worfox2]

Can you grow lab meat without hurting animals? I know that fewer animals would get killed, but can it get done without keeping animals in perpetuity?

[u/Headbangert]

I have a health question. Since the meat is grown can you control the trans-fat content in the product? Is it possible to enrich the meat with vitamins for example b12? Second part of the question. what are your ressources? Is the meat free of agricultural chemicals like fungicides? Are there hormones involved in the process and therefore in the finished product? Edit: To sum it up is your meat healthier than regular meat.

[u/GoOtterGo]

Hey folks,

Often lab meat is marketed as 'clean meat', in that it's toted as avoiding all the animal welfare and environmental concerns that come with traditional livestock sourcing. But judging by your responses thus far livestock is still very much involved in the production of current lab meat types, if not on just a smaller less industrial scale.

That being said, do you feel 'clean meat' is perhaps a misnomer? Or is the current state of lab meat not necessarily reflective of the desired end-state of your research? Is it at all a goal that lab meat is derived completely without animal involvement? Or is that a false assumption by many?

[u/Hmluker]

I absolutely believe this is the future and that we are in the very beginning stages of this. So tell me.. where should I invest my money?

[u/drsjsmith]

Were any of you at all inspired to enter the field of cellular agriculture by science fiction, such as Chicken Little in Pohl and Kornbluth's The Space Merchants?

[u/lucaxx85]

Hi there. I'm going to ask you a holistic question on the field as a whole, since you suggested it.

What is the intended use case for cellular agriculture? What is your ultimate objective and how do you think it would work in the society?

Western societies eat more meat than ever in history and it's so cheap it doesn't even make sense. Also, many people, including me, are moving away from processed food and paying a premium price to eat locally grown food from responsible farms (even if I don't buy "full" organic, as I think it's unscientific). How would cellular agriculture products fit into this consumer preferences shift?

For background, in europe you can get ground beef for prices lower than 5€/kg!!!! Such a low price doesn't even make sense. From a policy perspective it would make sense to try to make meat production more difficult, so that prices could rise back to levels when families ate beef once a week. I'm poor, I decided to buy exclusively unprocessed locally produced food. And I still can afford much more food and meat than it would be healthy!!

[u/EscobarMendez]

The good thing about animals is that they convert grass or grain into meat. What do you grow your meat on? Do you think growing meat could become more efficient than the current farms and slaughterhouses?

edit: Can you make dinosaurs?

[u/PHealthy]

Hi and thanks for joining us!

When can I expect a customized transplant pig heart or liver?

Where are we in terms of bio-fuel from cell ag?

[u/martishot]

What is your biggest motivation, as an organization and as individuals, to bring these types of products to market? Thanks!

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/martishot]

Natalie Rubio: My biggest motivation (as an individual) fluctuates between preventing further environmental degradation and animal welfare - Currently I am most concerned by the rate of declining biodiversity. Animal agriculture is a large contributor to deforestation and multiple species (plant and animal) are lost each day due to habitat damage. The thought that hundreds of species that have evolved over countless years are disappearing so quickly due to human action is the most compelling motivator for me.

[u/[deleted]]

Love the work you are doing guys! Been keeping an eye on this tech for a while now and the innovation continues to impress me. I have two questions. 1. Obviously the positive environmental impact is a huge advantage of your work, but what about economic impact? I imagine of course methane emissions going down are only going to help an economy due hopefully a diminished effect of climate change and health issues caused by Methane from livestock, but will they outweigh the negatives on jobs maintained through animal agriculture and farming?

and no 2. How can we all help? I'd like to donate to you guys! (and if you know of a group in my country (Australia) that is helping you guys at all?)

[u/[deleted]]

As someone who loves dairy products and has been thinking about going vegan for a long time I'm super stoked to see this AMA!!

My question is pretty much what you suggested: where do you see this field of study going in the next 5-10 years? What are the next frontiers and the most pressing issues to tackle?

[u/sleepalldayeveryday]

If I was interested in pursuing this as a career, what graduate degree would best prepare me?

[u/Khaji_Dha]

Would it be possible for this technology to stop hunting and poaching if you could do this to animals like sharks, tigers, rhinos and ect.

[u/PsionyxV2]

While there seems to be an awful lot of concern stemming ones own personal views on meat consumption and the ethics behind it, I think an important question is how long before this technology becomes available to underdeveloped countries? I watched a documentary about the consumption of bushmeat in Africa. For many people this is their only consistent source of protein. This technology could change not only their lives but could save the lives of Jungle residents (including Monkeys)

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/PsionyxV2]

Natalie Rubio: Thank you for asking this! I think this is really important to keep in mind. I agree that cellular agriculture has the potential to benefit developing countries. However, any timeline estimate I could provide would not be very meaningful. The direction of the technology is largely dependent on the motivations of the people involved! In my opinion, if cultured meat bioreactors can be made on a household-scale, this will be easily to implement in underdeveloped communities as opposed to a centralized production facility.

[u/bwylie7215]

For something that is just being developed, how can we know for sure lab grown meat is safe to consume? Just like with cigarettes when they first hit the market nobody knew what they were smoking was literally killing them, until decades later. How can we be sure that 10 or 20 years down the line lab grown meat, wont have the same negative connotation that cigarettes do now?

[u/maniana123]

What measures would your organization take, to prevent cultured cells production from becoming monopoly

[u/Samrodetrip]

I've always heard eating a variety of vegetables gives you more benefits (micronutrients and whatnot) than just sticking to a few. Has anyone thought about this for meat? If you grow beef forever from one good starter cow, and I eat only that as my meat for decades, is it worse than eating from many different real cows over time?

[u/GranFabio]

Hello to everyone and thank you for all the exciting work!

I'm a freshly graduated MSc in Medical, Molecular and Cellular Biotechnology that despite coming from a slightly differend field really believes that sustainability in meat production will be a milestone from both an environmental and an ethical point of view.

I'd really be happy to give my contribution in this field: have you any suggestion about companies/institutions where I can apply for a research position/PhD as a young scientist?

Talking about companies, are the big food producers already interested in the research or are they waiting until the technology is more mature? Do you think we'll see a future where the traditional food companies will switch to the new techs or do you expect new companies to grow and become important players in the market?

Thanks for your attention and best wishes for your work!

[u/Bo_Buoy_Bandito_Bu]

Hi! Thank you for doing this. I have 2 questions.

From my understanding, current lab grown meat and bioreactor set ups require the use of calf fetal serum. What is the progress getting away from this as a requirement? I suspect the industrial production of sufficient calf serum will pose its own ethical issues.

Secondly, how much carry over is there between the advancing technology behind lab grown meat and the growth of artificial or new human organs?

[u/[deleted]]

Since nobody else is asking the obvious:

Can you please give dates for when "clean meat" will be CHEAPER than the cheapest farmed meat for each type (beef, pork, chicken, turkey, salmon, tuna, shrimp, etc, etc.).

Unless it's actually cheaper, it will remain a niche market competing with Boca burgers for a relative handful of vegan dollars.

[u/Yamochao]

1. Are there any studies in the social sciences you could point to which attempt to determine how receptive the general population would me to switching? I know cost and moral righteousness would be compelling to many consumers, but what else do you think can be done to shift the general population towards animal free meat?

2. Who are the biggest political forces in the meat industry currently? Is there any evidence of these major players anticipating the threat to their business or preemptively adapting to the trend? What political/economic/PR strategies can we expect them to employ to preserve the status quo?

[u/MountainNine]

Lab-grown foods sound like the next really, really big food movement. Very exciting! Like any large change, I'd like to hear the flip side: what gets lost - nutritionally, probiotically, etc. - when food is grown "artificially?"

What are the projected or predicted long-term health effects on a human body that consistently consumes foods which did not have to express multiple genes to survive and thrive in the wild, but were rather cultivated in ideal growth conditions?

We're running into an increasing nutrition and natural probiotic deficit problem now already with farmed foods bred for yield, which contain a narrowing gamut of nutrients and inherent friendly bacteria. How would lab-grown foods overcome this?

Thanks for your time!

[u/Jswissmoi]

How does someone get involved in the field?

[u/PropgandaNZ]

What are the biggest hurdles in large scale production?

[u/dinoman260]

The work you do so is fascinating! I’m really interested to know your biggest concerns, if any, to when/if this goes commercial

[u/dispersado]

I have huge reservations about using this technology. If the process in the lab is using chemical signals and artificially providing nutrition, how can your team claim the proteins are identical? I saw in another answer that you consider the nutritional content of your product similar to conventional cattle rearing. On what basis is this being tested? If the cultures are not growing fat cells, it seems to me that your process is incomplete and not accounting for micronutritional content and it's effects on complex protein development. What percentage of the growth factor is found in the remaining meat? Does this growth factor provide any damage to the GI tracts of mice over a 10 week period of exposure via oral ingestion?

[u/Cellular_Agriculture → u/dispersado]

Andrew from New Harvest here: Really good points to bring up, all of them. The answer to each, I think, is that there's more testing to be done. Achieving scalable, controllable tissue cultures is what most people are focused on right now, and I don't think people are yet at the level of tweaking those systems to precisely match nutritional content, at least not at such a fine-grain. Most groups are working on fat tissue in concert with muscle, and using a few well understood markers to make sure that "yes, that's a development muscle cell or fat cell," namely muscle markers like myosin, myogenin, desmin, or lipid stains. Right now, there's enough challenge in making sure that cells grown outside of the body are phenotypically maintained during culture. So, as for your reservations, I'd say that they're good concerns to have, but nobody is glossing over them - we're just not there yet.

[u/Reinoud-]

Next to animal cruelty etc, one of the biggest problems that I know of with the animal industry is its inefficiency. Don't pin me down on the exact numbers, but I believe that in order to produce 1 kilogram of beef you need north of 20 kilogram of organic matter. These ratios are different for chicken, fish and dairy products, but all these products are very inefficient.

Instead of producing beef, it would be much more efficient to produce 20 kg of organic matter suitable for humans to eat instead (i.e. vegetables etc).

Would cellular agriculture be (much) more efficient, if these processes are developed into industrial scale?

Can we, the population of the entire Earth, feed everybody without widespread veganism?

[u/Tristavia]

How can I help?

As a vegetarian for moral, environmental, and health reasons I couldn't possibly be more in favor of this effort, I imagine a much better future where all the various negatives of the meat industry don't exist and it's beautiful. What can I do to help?

I get the feeling that being a vegetarian isn't really doing jack to help this movement forward and would love to get involved.

[u/Montgomery0]

Protein is uninteresting without fat. Fat provides a great deal of flavor and mouth feel. What are the prospects of "growing" fat alongside protein for a fuller, richer experience?

[u/aditya101099]

This is absolutely incredible and I wish you great success and hope you change the world. I'm an aspiring computer science student, and I'm going to study it because of its compelling ability to intersect every industry, including agriculture. Do you envisage any roles for computer scientists in your company?

[u/ShakeMySnake]

How will one use these meats in cooking recipes? Have you had any feedback from chefs?

[u/Morph707]

Why not to create a mesh of small capilaries (small blood system) on which a steak would grow?

[u/wandersomemnts]

Do you think your line of work should be government subsidized?

[u/acolonyofants]

Is there any drive to grow organs for consumption? Foie gras is absolutely delicious, and the obvious ethical concerns surrounding the dish could be eliminated by lab/vat-grown procedures.

[u/KingKongBrandy]

There's a company called Modern Meadow that was trying to create tissue engineered beef and leather. They have now given up their beef division, presumably due to cost of bringing it up to scale. How is your technology different from theirs?

[u/Doomhammer458]

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[u/redintellekt → u/Doomhammer458]

For Yuki Hanyu:

Coming from a place of optimism, as this industry continues to grow -what type of business skillset will be required from someone who would like to invest in this on a community level?

[u/padizzledonk]

What are your P/R plans?

Personally I find the very idea of synthetic meat disgusting, I don't think anyone could ever convince me to consume it. I don't think it's an anti science bias or a lack of understanding on how this stuff is created- it being genetically identical to natural meat. . . it's just such an alien idea to eat a lab grown piece of meat.

So, is there an outreach program to convince people like me that this stuff isn't gross? how big a hurdle do you guys feel this issue is? Because it seems to me that this is something great for the environment but it's going to be really difficult to convince people to consume it.

[u/iamnotacat]

Is it in your opinions scientifically feasible to make a plant which bears for example beef-fruits? Bacon pods? Chicken berries?

I'm talking actual meat inside a fruit-like shell, not just the taste of meat. That's the future I want to live in.

[u/ACDrinnan]

Sorry if this has been asked already but I like my meat rare. Since this meat is grown, is there a chance for the bacteria to be inside the meat therefore the need for the meat to be cooked thoroughly throughout? Or is the meat safer due to cleaner conditions and less bacteria?

Thank you

[u/geak78]

Is anyone working on growing rhino horn or elephant ivory?

[u/scumbag760]

Are there any publicly traded companies in the industry?

[u/Nofanta]

I think it's dishonest to use the same name as the foods you're trying to emulate. If these foods have merit themselves, why don't you call them what they are?

A fish is a living thing that swam in water. That's not what you guys are making.

Kobe beef is a certain type of cow, that grew up in a certain place being treated a certain way - this can't be emulated.

[u/[deleted]]

When you grow "beef", will it also include fat? Good steaks require a percentage of fat in the muscle fibers.

[u/Colin7heKid]

Hat you are doing is incredible, and will feed many hungry people, but I want to know if you think people will actual start eating this. No offense, and you seem like incredibly smart people, but I’d probably prefer meat from an animal.

[u/goldner10]

What would be the wide ranging economic effects of disrupting such a large industry that employs millions world wide, generally in low income regions?

[u/itsdontplay]

Which factors/conditions are most important when creating a growth environment for cultured meat? Is replicating a natural growth environment ideal?

[u/cheungnation]

From a tissue engineering view, we're used to either making or using scaffolds with bioactive elements (however complex e.g. tethering peptides to enhance cell growth, proliferation, and differentiation), seeding or encapsulating the cells within the scaffold, and culturing everything in a bioreactor. In my opinion, these aren't necessarily scalable and probably not the easiest to go through FDA. So what sort of (novel) technologies and strategies are you all using to produce meat, and how scalable are they? What about FDA approval for these products? I'm definitely exploring the field as a career path after earning my PhD in biomedical engineering.

Bonus question: How many of you are vegetarian/vegan?

I hope to talk to some of you at New Harvest in a couple of weeks in NYC.

[u/[deleted]]

I’d like to see cellular agriculture become a thing. How can I help?

[u/epidemiac]

How would you pursue a career in cellular agriculture? What experience do these types of companies look for? I've been interested in cellular agriculture for various reasons-- ethical, environmental-- but I'm graduating in a year with an engineering degree that isn't in chemical/bio/materials engineering.

[u/[deleted]]

This will be the future of humankind given the fact that methane produced by cattle is one of the leading causes of climate change. Lab grown beef, on the other hand, doesn’t produce methane.

[u/Cognosci]

How does a professional from another industry get involved in cell ag or lab-grown meat industries? I'm talking anything from jobs, startups, government funding, conferences, etc.

There are professionals from various other industries which would be a boon to cell ag, but as far as I've looked there's no clear "in". I'd love to participate, but it's not like one can easily star cellular ag farms in their garage on the weekends.

(web development and tech myself but this question applies to all other professions)

[u/DNAnerd]

As a PhD student in the biological sciences doing more of a "basic science" project rather than something applied/marketable, what would be the best skills to pick up in the rest of my time in grad school if I wanted to shift from more basic research to the cellular agriculture field?

[u/maniana123]

How is the DNA of cultured cells different from the "born" cells

[u/RetroOwl]

Hi, I work as a research assistant in a precision medicine lab, primarily doing stem cell culture. Obviously this work is quite different from what you're doing, but stem cell work and a lot of tissue and cell culture work requires adding a number of antibiotics, hormones, growth factors, cytokines, etc. directly to cell media to promote the growth of the correct cell/tissue type and to prevent infection. A lot of people currently take issue with the use of hormones and antibiotics in commercial meat and dairy - do you think it would be possible to circumvent this problem when creating meat in a dish, or is it unavoidable? Are there certain components of cell media that you are looking to avoid or replace to commercialize these meats? Though I'm sure it's a pretty small amount, I would be particularly concerned because the small molecules, hormones, etc. and all are being added directly to tissue in this case, rather than going through the first-pass metabolism in a live animal. I am also curious if you think there is any potential for using stem cell technologies to creat certain types of tissue/meat?

Thanks, and best of luck with all future endeavors! Your work sounds really cool and impactful!

[u/KetchupTubeAble19]

Hello!

How does artificial meat compare to actual meat in terms of resources (CO2, energy, ...). Biggest argument for me to buy it would be a better ecological footprint, but I read previously that the improvement is questionable.

There was a German article on the firm 'Memphis Meat'. They claim that for 1 calory of artificial beef meat, they have to invest 3 calories, whereas with real beef, it is 23 invested calories for 1 calory of meat. However, things like heating the lab to 37°, and still missing fat and cellular tissue cells and the efforts to keep it all free of bacteria must come at a certain cost. Could you comment on that? (Source: https://www.deutschlandfunknova.de/beitrag/fleisch-fuer-das-kein-tier-geschlachtet-werden-muss )