The science of cultivated meat | GFI (2024)

Table of Contents

New cost & environmental impact reports Introduction to cultivated meat What is cultivated meat? How is cultivated meat made? What are the benefits of cultivated meat? When will cultivated meat make it to market? Cell lines The current state of cell lines Many cell types can be used to cultivate meat Deriving cell lines requires many resources Increasing access to cell lines is a priority for the industry Cell line challenges Cell types have specific pros and cons Engineering cells can inform research and development What comes next for cell lines Democratization of cell lines will open new doors Check out additional reading and resources Expanding access to cell lines Cultivated Meat Research Tools Database The Frozen Farmyard repository Seafood cell lines Differentiation and cell lines for cultivated carp Making muscle cells Cell line development from food-relevant aquatic species Mapping animal cell metabolism to optimize media formulation Promoting stemness and proliferation in fish cell cultures The current state of cell culture media What’s in cell culture media? Animal serum will not be used in large-scale production Significant cost reductions are possible without large technological leaps Reducing costs of recombinant proteins is the largest price reduction lever Demand forecasts can help to predict industry needs What’s next for cell culture media? Long-term optimizations will contribute to further cost reduction and sustainability improvements Check out additional reading and resources Cultivated meat media and growth factor trends Analyzing cell culture medium costs Cultivated Meat Research Tools Database Cultivated meat growth factor volume and cost analysis Formulating media with macromolecular crowding Optimizing media for chicken cells Machine learning for fish growth media Reducing cell culture media cost High-performance oxygen carriers for cultivated meat Optimizing fat profiles for nutritional and sensory properties Mapping animal cell metabolism to optimize media formulation Bioprocess design The current state of bioprocess design Bioreactors permit large-scale cell cultivation Innovations in bioreactor technology represent a large whitespace opportunity Funding and consortia focused on bioreactors and process scale-up have begun to mobilize Bioprocess design challenges Pilot-scale facilities represent the first major scale-up progress Planning for success What’s next for bioprocess design? All hands on deck Check out additional reading and resources Integrating sensors into bioreactors Biomanufacturing scaffold-free cultivated meat Assembling organoids into meat Designing cost-effective bioreactors High-performance oxygen carriers for cultivated meat Developing scalable, fit-for-purpose bioreactor and bioprocessing technologies for cultivated meat Scaffolds and structural approaches to optimize fat distribution and content in cultivated meat Scaffolding The current state of scaffolds What do scaffolds do? What properties do scaffolds have? Scaffold challenges Structured products present numerous challenges Creative solutions are needed What’s next for scaffolds? Maximizing potential Check out additional reading and resources Hybrid scaffolds for cultivated chicken Diversifying cultivated meats 3D fiber scaffolds for shrimp Algae scaffolds for cultivated fish Naturally adhesive and edible non-animal scaffolding materials Incorporating growth factors into scaffolds to reduce costs and introduce spatial heterogeneity Scaffolds and structural approaches to optimize fat distribution and content in cultivated meat End product considerations The current state of end products What might the first generation of cultivated meat products look like? End product challenges Competing on all aspects of meat quality What’s next for end products? The future is bright Check out additional reading and resources Aggregating data for alternative seafood State of the Industry Report: Cultivated meat and seafood Algae scaffolds for cultivated fish Plant-based scaffolds Developing marbled cultivated beef 3-D printing bioinks Catalog of animal meat flavors Cultivated, fermentation-derived, or hybrid surimi Meet the authors Elliot Swartz, Ph.D. Claire Bomkamp, Ph.D. Meet ourscience & technology advisory board FAQs

Learn about the science of cultivated meat and the challenges that must be addressed for commercial production.

New cost & environmental impact reports

Studies show cultivated meat can have massive environmental benefits and be cost-competitive by 2030

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Introduction
Cell lines
Cell culture media
Bioprocess design
Scaffolding
End product considerations

Introduction to cultivated meat

What is cultivated meat?

Cultivated meat, also known as cultured meat, is genuine animal meat (including seafood and organ meats) that is produced by cultivating animal cells directly. This production method eliminates the need to raise and farm animals for food. Cultivated meat is made of the same cell types that can be arranged in the same or similar structure as animal tissues, thus replicating the sensory and nutritional profiles of conventional meat.

Dutch scientist Mark Post unveiled the first cultivated meat burger on live television in 2013. Two years later, the first four cultivated meat companies were founded. The industry has since grown to more than 150 companies on 6 continents as of late 2022, backed by $2.6B in investments, each aiming to produce cultivated meat products. Dozens more companies have formed to create technology solutions along the value chain.

Decades of accumulated knowledge in cell culture, stem cell biology, tissue engineering, fermentation, and chemical and bioprocess engineering preceded the field of cultivated meat. Hundreds of companies and academic laboratories worldwide are conducting research across these disciplines to establish a new paradigm for manufacturing commodity meat products at industrial scales.

How is cultivated meat made?

The manufacturing process begins with acquiring and banking stem cells from an animal. These cells are then grown in bioreactors (known colloquially as cultivators) at high densities and volumes. Similar to what happens inside an animal’s body, the cells are fed an oxygen-rich cell culture medium made up of basic nutrients such as amino acids, glucose, vitamins, and inorganic salts, and supplemented with growth factors and other proteins.

Changes in the medium composition, often in tandem with cues from a scaffolding structure, trigger immature cells to differentiate into the skeletal muscle, fat, and connective tissues that make up meat. The differentiated cells are then harvested, prepared, and packaged into final products. This process is expected to take between 2-8 weeks, depending on what kind of meat is being cultivated. Some companies are pursuing a similar strategy to create milk and other animal products.

What are the benefits of cultivated meat?

By nature of its more efficient production process, cultivated meat is expected to have a variety of benefits over conventional animal agriculture. Prospective life cycle assessments indicate that cultivated meat will use significantly fewer resources and can reduce agriculture-related pollution and eutrophication. One study showed that cultivated meat, if produced using renewable energy, could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 92% and land use by up to 90% compared to conventional beef. Additionally, commercial production is expected to occur entirely without antibiotics and is likely to result in fewer incidences of foodborne illnesses due to the lack of exposure risk from enteric pathogens.

Over the next few decades, cultivated meat and other alternative proteins are predicted to take significant market share from the $1.7 trillion conventional meat and seafood industry. This shift will mitigate agriculture-related deforestation, biodiversity loss, antibiotic resistance, zoonotic disease outbreaks, and industrialized animal slaughter.

When will cultivated meat make it to market?

As of late 2022, several leading cultivated meat companies are transitioning to pilot-scale facilities that will manufacture the first wave of commercialized products following regulatory approval. The Singapore Food Agency approved the world’s first cultivated chicken product for sale in December 2020, where it is currently sold in several restaurants, public food stalls, and a butchery.

In November 2022, UPSIDE Foods completed the first United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) pre-market consultation for its cultivated chicken product. UPSIDE Foods will need to acquire a grant of inspection from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) prior to being able to sell its product, which is anticipated to occur in 2023. Other countries are at various stages of developing regulatory frameworks to permit the sale of cultivated meat.

Further scaling will require commercial production in significantly larger facilities than what currently exists. Scaling will also require solving an array of complex challenges that will influence the cost of production. These challenges span five key areas: cell lines, cell culture media, bioprocess design, scaffolding, and end product design and characterization.

Solving these challenges and propelling the cultivated meat industry to maturity will require an influx of funding from both the public and private sectors. New courses, research centers, and training programs for scientists, as well as policy work and regulatory action will accelerate progress.

The field will also need new companies, contributions from existing life science companies, and openness to collaboration from existing cultivated meat companies. Many new career opportunities will need to be filled by talented scientists, businesspeople, and other contributors along the value chain.

The science of cultivated meat | GFI (3)

Cell lines

Many different cell types can be used to cultivate meat. Further research is needed to make cell lines more accessible and to determine how the selection of a cell type and its properties influence the downstream process considerations.

Take a deeper dive

The current state of cell lines

Many cell types can be used to cultivate meat

According to an industry survey conducted in 2020, cultivated meat manufacturers are using a variety of starter cells, including skeletal muscle stem cells (i.e., myosatellite cells), fibroblasts, mesenchymal stem cells, induced pluripotent and embryonic stem cells, and adipose-derived cells. Starter cells can also sometimes originate from specific organs to create other products. For example, cells from mammary glands can be used for milk production, and cells from livers for foie gras.

The most common method to acquire starter cells is by taking a cell sample from a live animal, which can be performed using minimally invasive methods. In some cases, these cells may also be acquired by biopsying a recently slaughtered animal where the tissue is still viable, which could be important for determining compliance to religious laws (e.g., halal, kosher). In all cases, the acquired cells originate from healthy animals alongside extensive documentation that ensure the quality and traceability of the cells.

Deriving cell lines requires many resources

The majority of cultivated meat manufacturers work with well-characterized cell lines, which have the ability to continuously proliferate over time. Some producers may use primary cells, which by definition have a finite life span. Currently, access to continuous cell lines from species used for cultivated meat production remains a major barrier for new research endeavors.

The creation of new cell lines can be both time- and resource-intensive, often taking 6-18 months to derive and sufficiently characterize a single line. In medical research, the creation of large-scale cell line biorepositories is often nationally-sponsored, emphasizing their fundamental importance in advancing research. Similar government-backed projects for cultivated meat are underway in Singapore, but more are needed.

Increasing access to cell lines is a priority for the industry

To accelerate cell line availability, GFI is tracking available cell lines and funding multiple research projects that create cell lines from species spanning livestock, poultry, and aquatic animals. GFI has also partnered with reagent provider Kerafast to bank and distribute cell lines submitted by researchers from around the world in academia and industry. B2B companies specializing in cell line creation and distribution are pursuing similar strategies.

Additional efforts are needed to generate and characterize cell lines from more species and different cell types, create protocols for cell isolation and culturing conditions, and discover low-cost, animal-free cell culture medium formulations. Partnerships with conventional meat producers and aquaculture groups that often work with animal cell lines may accelerate R&D in these areas.

Cell line challenges

Cell types have specific pros and cons

As described previously, there are many cell types that can be used as starting inputs for cultivated meat production. However, more research is needed to determine which cells will be best suited for large-scale manufacturing or the creation of specific product types. Intrinsic cell characteristics, such as suitability for suspension growth, doubling times, growth rates, metabolism, differentiation capacity, and genomic stability can vary between cell type and species.

These characteristics must be weighed alongside techno-economic models and bioprocess design considerations to inform cell line selection. However, this is challenging. Species used in cultivated meat production (especially aquatic animals) are much less researched than humans, mice, or hamsters, which have been the mainstay of the biomedical and biopharmaceutical industries.

Engineering cells can inform research and development

Cell engineering can accelerate the development of cell lines suitable for cultivated meat. Engineering cell lines can dramatically improve the efficiency or productivity of the production process, or even influence end product attributes such as nutrition.

Cell line engineering can take place in the form of adaptation or genetic engineering. Adaptation involves the serial subculture of a cell line in varying conditions along with selection over time. This process yields a cell line adapted to a new set of conditions or exhibiting a new trait. Common forms of adaptation include adaptation to serum-free medium, reduced requirements for growth factors, or suspension growth.

Genetic engineering entails permanent changes by either removing, rearranging, or introducing DNA. While some cultivated meat companies have stated they do not plan to use genetic engineering, several others have filed patents describing various engineering approaches. Ultimately, the extent of genetic engineering and types of modifications incorporated into final products will be dependent on the regulatory approval process for engineered products, as well as consumer perceptions in different regions.

What comes next for cell lines

Democratization of cell lines will open new doors

In the future, researchers will have easy access to many well-characterized cell lines housed in multiple biorepositories spread across the globe. To get there, more public funding is needed to attract experienced stem cell biologists who can apply their knowledge and tools to the cultivated meat field. Researchers and companies alike should be motivated and incentivized to deposit cell lines in public repositories to lower the burden of entry throughout the industry.

To help overcome challenges in cell line engineering, life science companies and contract research organizations that specialize in cell line development are needed. These companies can apply high-throughput techniques and automation technologies to improve cell line R&D and engineering efforts. Together, these efforts can support a more robust research ecosystem that will generate new findings, create new tools, reduce costs, and accelerate the pace of commercialization.

Check out additional reading and resources

Discover papers, GFI resources, ongoing research projects, and research opportunities related to cell lines.

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GFI resources
Current research
Research opportunities

GFI resources

Dig into open-access resources created by our experts.

The science of cultivated meat | GFI (5)

Expanding access to cell lines

Lack of access to cell lines is a major barrier to cultivated meat research. This initiative is increasing access and funding the development of new lines.

The science of cultivated meat | GFI (6)

Cultivated Meat Research Tools Database

Use this crowdsourced directory to find species-specific information on research tools, reagents, protocols, and data for cultivated meat researchers.

Current research

GFI-funded research projects

Learn about ongoing research by GFI grantees to accelerate cell line development for cultivated meat.

The science of cultivated meat | GFI (7)

The Frozen Farmyard repository

Learn about Dr. Gareth Sullivan’s work to develop a “frozen farmyard” cell line repository for cultivated meat.

The science of cultivated meat | GFI (8)

Seafood cell lines

Learn about Dr. Kevan Main and Dr. Cathy Walsh’s work at Mote Marine Laboratory to develop cell lines and methodology for cultivated seafood.

The science of cultivated meat | GFI (9)

Differentiation and cell lines for cultivated carp

Learn about Dr. Mukunda Goswami’s research to develop cell lines from carp and characterize their differentiation at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research.

The science of cultivated meat | GFI (10)

Making muscle cells

Learn about Dr. Ori Bar-Nur’s research to convert bovine and porcine fibroblasts into proliferative myogenic progenitor cells at ETH Zurich.

Research opportunities

Explore research opportunities in cell lines from our Advancing Solutions for Alternative Proteins database.

Cultivated

Cell line development from food-relevant aquatic species

A lack of publicly-available cell lines from relevant species and cell types continues to be a challenge for the field of cultivated seafood. Addressing this challenge will require further investigation…

Cultivated

Mapping animal cell metabolism to optimize media formulation

The cost and environmental impact of cultivated meat are driven by the cell culture media formulation and its conversion efficiency into meat. Metabolic modeling and engineering techniques can aid media…

Cultivated

Promoting stemness and proliferation in fish cell cultures

Efficient and cost-effective cultivated fish production will require precise optimization to encourage fast proliferation and highly efficient use of inputs while preventing premature differentiation. A variety of strategies can be…

The science of cultivated meat | GFI (14)

The cell culture media contains the nutrients and growth factors that cells need to grow outside of the body. Research on optimized formulations, animal-free, food-grade components, and recycling technologies are needed to make cell culture media significantly more affordable.

Take a deeper dive

The current state of cell culture media

What’s in cell culture media?

The cell culture media is the most important technology underlying the near-term success of the cultivated meat industry. Cell culture media is composed of two groups of components tailored to a specific cell or species type.

The first group of components, called the basal media, provides essential nutrients. It typically consists of a buffered solution containing glucose, inorganic salts, water-soluble vitamins, and amino acids. The second is a group of specific added factors that permit the long-term maintenance, proliferation, or differentiation of cells. These added factors are often recombinant proteins, growth factors or hormones, and other ingredients such as lipids and antioxidants.

Animal serum will not be used in large-scale production

While the basal media has persisted nearly unchanged since the 1950s, a transition away from other added factors originating from animal sources such as serum is still underway in many industries. The use of animal-derived components in cultivated meat production has prohibitive economic, and ethical constraints. Many companies have already publicly stated they are using medium formulations that are entirely animal-free, with some research groups and companies having published their protocols for serum-free proliferation and differentiation.

In Singapore, Eat Just’s first cultivated chicken products were produced using small quantities of fetal bovine serum (FBS). However, the company received approval to sell cultivated chicken using serum-free media in early 2023. In the United States, UPSIDE Foods submitted information to the FDA showing their product can be created with or without FBS. In processes without FBS, purified bovine serum albumin was used. However, the company has stated that they intend to phase out the use of bovine serum albumin with recombinant forms of albumin protein.

Significant cost reductions are possible without large technological leaps

The largest challenge the cultivated meat industry faces is not simply foregoing animal components in the cell culture media but rather discovering how to do so affordably and how to optimize affordable formulations for maximized productivity.

Media cost reduction models have projected achievable prices of less than $0.25 per liter using existing technologies. This would amount to upwards of a 99.9% cost reduction versus media manufactured and sold to the biomedical and biopharmaceutical industries — a seemingly daunting task.

However, considerable progress has already been made in achieving these dramatic cost reductions. For instance, a team of researchers at Northwestern University demonstrated a popular stem cell medium formulation could be produced for 97% less versus its commercially-sold counterpart.

Mosa Meat, a leading cultivated meat company in the Netherlands, announced in July of 2020 that they had reduced their medium costs by 88 fold. Many respondents to a 2020 survey anticipated similar levels of cost reduction within the next 12 months.

Reducing costs of recombinant proteins is the largest price reduction lever

Multiple options for cost reduction are being pursued across the industry. The most urgent action is to address the high costs of recombinant proteins and growth factors. While some B2B manufacturers are scaling the production of proteins and growth factors using microbes, fungi, or plants as expression systems, others are looking to replace these proteins and growth factors with plant-based alternatives,especially for proteins used at high concentrations in the media, such as albumin and transferrin.

Costs can also be reduced by sourcing media components at food or feed grade, reducing the overhead and operational costs associated with producing pharmaceutical-grade components. This will be especially important for amino acids and glucose, which together are predicted to be a longer-term cost driver for media. Some cultivated meat companies have already struck partnerships with various food and animal feed manufacturers to obtain these components by tapping into mature supply chains.

Demand forecasts can help to predict industry needs

Projections of total volumes and demand forecasts for specific media components are needed to inform suppliers, businesses, and investors of the cell culture media market. One study estimated the volumes and costs of growth factors for the industry by 2030, but more are needed for other cost-heavy media components such as amino acids.

Challenges still remain in identifying formulations that are best suited for each species and cell type used by cultivated meat manufacturers. Formulation discovery and optimization can be assisted by metabolic models and computationally-assisted algorithms. Life science companies with high-throughput and microfluidic capabilities can also lend services for formulation discovery.

Open-source media formulations will be important in informing the selection, sourcing, and production of raw materials that will be used throughout the industry. While cost is a driving factor, food-safety, regulation, environmental impact, and social sustainability implications for farmers and others along the supply chain are all important considerations.

What’s next for cell culture media?

Long-term optimizations will contribute to further cost reduction and sustainability improvements

There are many additional opportunities for cost reduction and optimized formulations that are likely to contribute to the commercial success of cultivated meat over longer time horizons. These include developing novel technologies for medium recycling, valorizing waste streams or metabolites produced by cells, engineering growth factors with improved properties, and researching how cell culture media components influence the nutritional profiles of end products. Progress in each of these areas will require more public funding as well as co-developing solutions with participants from academia, the life science industry, and the cultivated meat industry.