[Application Sharing] Exploring the Future of Food Transformation: REBEL—Empowering Innovation in Cultured Meat Technology

The production of “clean meat” is a form of bio-tissue engineering that uses cell lines derived from species closely related to meat—such as birds, mammals, and fish—to generate, via cell-culture platforms, various cell types found in muscle cells, including adipocytes and connective tissues.

[Application Sharing] Exploring the Future of Food Transformation: REBEL—Empowering Innovation in Cultured Meat Technology

2023-06-29

The concept of “cultured meat” generally falls into two categories: one involves using plant-based proteins to replace traditional livestock meat—this is what’s commonly referred to as... “ Plant-based meat ” , this kind of “ Meat ” It mainly relies on soy protein and other plant-based proteins, which are processed through extrusion and the addition of flavoring agents to mimic the texture of meat. Essentially, “ Plant-based meat ” It’s not meat itself, but rather a soy-based product that mimics the appearance and flavor of meat. And another type—well, that’s... “clean meat” It is produced using bioengineering technology; it doesn’t require the slaughter of livestock, yet it is genuine meat.

“clean meat” Production of this product is a form of bio-tissue engineering that utilizes cell lines derived from species related to meat—such as birds, mammals, and fish—to generate, via cell-culture platforms, various cell types found in muscle cells, including adipocytes and connective tissue cells. “clean meat” Technological advancements hold the potential to replicate the taste, texture, aroma, natural ingredients, and appearance of conventional meat. Compared to plant-based meat, it requires the addition of various additives to achieve a similar imitation. “ Meat ” the taste of, “clean meat” It is meat itself, and thus is even more favored by animals. / Recognition and attention from environmentalists and others.

“clean meat” Its cost is high, and its production process technology still has a long way to go. In particular, the production process highlights the challenge of selecting the appropriate culture medium and growth factors. Initially... “clean meat” Its creation utilized a culture medium supplemented with fetal bovine serum. However, the addition of fetal bovine serum not only drove up costs significantly but also ran counter to the original intention of avoiding animal slaughter. Over the past decade, animal-free components have been developed. / Serum-free culture media have made significant progress in response to the demands of the cell-based biopharmaceutical industry, and today there are hundreds of commercially available serum-free medium formulations. Whether serum-free and animal-origin-free media can support cell survival, proliferation, and differentiation remains a potential limitation. “clean meat” The most important condition for the process.

Optimizing chemically defined media typically requires extensive data on the concentrations of numerous components—especially (essential) amino acids and vitamins—which have a remarkably significant impact on cell growth and differentiation. If these vast numbers of samples were analyzed using traditional methods, the workload would undoubtedly be enormous, time-consuming, and labor-intensive. To strike a balance between cost-effectiveness and efficiency, cultivated meat companies... BlueNalu (The United States), Mosa Meat (The Netherlands), Future Meat (Israel) and others are all using it. 908devices of the REBEL 。 REBEL As a dedicated culture medium analyzer, it employs microfluidic chip technology. CE-MS Capillary electrophoresis - the principle of mass spectrometry coupling), helping R&D personnel break away from traditional analytical characterization processes (which involve numerous steps and are time-consuming), for... REBEL The sample requires only a microscale volume to complete multiple analyses. <30ul ), less than a single analysis 10 Can be completed in minutes >30 The analysis of component concentrations, as well as the operational and sample-preparation procedures, are remarkably simple.

Currently, numerous studies have outlined best practices for developing new animal-free culture media formulations, serving as a roadmap for expanding these formulations to meat-related cell lines and species. [1] Recent advances in porous microfluidic devices for animal cell culture can significantly accelerate the medium-screening process by enabling the parallelization of hundreds or thousands of conditions and facilitating the screening of complex phenotypes through automated image analysis. [2] For media used in large-scale production, it is not only necessary to consider optimizing viscosity for the fluid dynamics of large bioreactors, but also... pH In addition to these parameters, it is also necessary to investigate whether appropriately adding certain ingredients under the specific conditions of large-scale cultivation can enhance cell viability. Beyond studying how to optimize cell growth, it is crucial to control costs. To achieve a price comparable to that of conventional meat, the costs of both the basal medium and growth factors must be significantly reduced. Therefore, key questions include: How can we screen for molecules that mimic the activity of natural growth factors? How can we analyze and identify which medium components act as rate-limiting factors restricting cell growth? And how can we optimize the formulation of the basal medium? “clean meat” The process is currently still on a continuous journey of exploration and optimization. REBEL Its existence can undoubtedly accelerate the optimization process of culture media in the cultivated meat industry, thereby speeding up... “clean meat” Industrialization and commercialization.

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And the market for “clean meat” The attitude toward this issue largely depends on consumer acceptance. Once animal meat is cut, it becomes exposed to the surrounding environment and may harbor numerous dangerous foodborne pathogens, such as Campylobacter, Salmonella, and Escherichia coli, which can cause infectious diseases upon consumption. Meanwhile, using... “clean meat” Replacing traditional meat will undoubtedly reduce risks (which is also... “clean meat” The origin of the name. Compared to traditional meat, we can exert control over... “clean meat” the growth conditions. It helps eliminate harmful substances that may be present in meat, such as pesticides, fungicides, heavy metals, aflatoxins, melamine, and antibodies. Although... “clean meat” There are still many challenges to overcome in terms of processes, quality control, costs, and more, but... “clean meat” As an alternative to edible meat—or even as a high-end, pathogen-free version—this could be the only solution to the protein shortage in a future where human demand for meat and protein-rich foods continues to grow.

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References: 1. Z. Xiao, M. Sabourin, G. Piras, S.F. Gorfien, Screening and Optimization of Chemically Defined Media and Feeds with Integrated and Statistical Approaches, in: Humana Press, Totowa, NJ, 2014: pp. 117–135. doi:10.1007/978-1-62703-733-4_9.

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2. P. Datta, L. Meli, L. Li, N. Migliore, E. Schaefer, S.T. Sharfstein, J.S. Dordick, R.J. Linhardt, Microarray platform affords improved product analysis in mammalian cell growth studies, Biotechnol. J. 9 (2014) 386–395. doi:10.1002/biot.201300288.

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[Literature Review] Key Technologies in Artificial Meat Development—The Impact of Serum-Free Medium Components

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