- Review Article
- Published:
Scientific, sustainability and regulatory challenges of cultured meat
- Mark J. Post ORCID:orcid.org/0000-0001-9312-27091,2,
- Shulamit Levenberg ORCID:orcid.org/0000-0001-5471-73393,4,
- David L. Kaplan ORCID:orcid.org/0000-0002-9245-77745,
- Nicholas Genovese6,
- Jianan Fu7,
- Christopher J. Bryant8,
- Nicole Negowetti9,
- Karin Verzijden10 &
- …
- Panagiota Moutsatsou2
Nature Foodvolume 1, pages403–415 (2020)Cite this article
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635Citations
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Abstract
Cellular agriculture is an emerging branch of biotechnology that aims to address issues associated with the environmental impact, animal welfare and sustainability challenges of conventional animal farming for meat production. Cultured meat can be produced by applying current cell culture practices and biomanufacturing methods and utilizing mammalian cell lines and cell and gene therapy products to generate tissue or nutritional proteins for human consumption. However, significant improvements and modifications are needed for the process to be cost efficient and robust enough to be brought to production at scale for food supply. Here, we review the scientific and social challenges in transforming cultured meat into a viable commercial option, covering aspects from cell selection and medium optimization to biomaterials, tissue engineering, regulation and consumer acceptance.
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Acknowledgements
We thank J. Breemhaar for designing and drafting Fig.2, and N. Rubio, A. Stout, J. Yuen, K. Fish, N. Xiang and A. Szklanny for their contributions. D.K. is supported by Advanced Research Projects Agency, National Institute of Health, the Good Food Institute and New Harvest. M.J.P. is supported by EU Horizon 2020, Research Council of Norway.
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Authors and Affiliations
Department of Physiology, Maastricht University, CARIM, Maastricht, the Netherlands
Mark J. Post
Mosa Meat B.V., Maastricht, the Netherlands
Mark J. Post & Panagiota Moutsatsou
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel
Shulamit Levenberg
Aleph Farms Ltd, Ashdod, Israel
Shulamit Levenberg
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tufts University, Boston, MA, USA
David L. Kaplan
Memphis Meat, Berkeley, CA, USA
Nicholas Genovese
PAN-Biotech Ltd, Aidenbach, Germany
Jianan Fu
University of Bath, Bath, UK
Christopher J. Bryant
Harvard Law School, Cambridge, MA, USA
Nicole Negowetti
Axon Lawyers, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Karin Verzijden
- Mark J. Post
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- Shulamit Levenberg
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- David L. Kaplan
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- Nicholas Genovese
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- Jianan Fu
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- Christopher J. Bryant
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Correspondence toMark J. Post.
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Competing interests
M.J.P. is chief scientific officer, co-founder and shareholder of Mosa Meat B.V.; P.M. is lead bioprocess engineer at Mosa Meat B.V.; S.L. is chief scientific officer, co-founder and shareholder of Aleph Farms; N.G. is chief scientific officer, co-founder and shareholder of Memphis Meats; J.F. is chief scientific officer and employee of PAN-Biotech GmbH; K.V. is lawyer and partner at AXON lawyers, a law firm that is active in the cellular agriculture space.
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Post, M.J., Levenberg, S., Kaplan, D.L.et al. Scientific, sustainability and regulatory challenges of cultured meat.Nat Food1, 403–415 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-020-0112-z
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