Plant-based scaffolds for lab-grown meat


Utilizing plant proteins derived from crop waste and spent grains provides new dimension to sustainable, lab-grown meats.

Numerous analysis goes into growing lab-grown meat, with many hoping {that a} artificial various to farmed animals may assist deal with longstanding points akin to animal welfare, transmission of zoonotic illnesses, overuse of antibiotics, and a discount in carbon emissions.

Whereas we’re nearer than ever to bringing synthetic meats to the dinner desk, there are nonetheless hurdles to beat. Dejian Huang on the Division of Meals Science & Expertise on the Nationwide College of Singapore, has been working on this subject for the previous decade, and is hoping to clear among the hurdles by way of new and progressive approaches to creating lab-grown meat.

“Cell-based meat holds the promise of revolutionizing the meat trade for sustainable growth […] and the slowing of worldwide warming,” defined Huang. “Cultured meat will be custom-made for higher dietary values and variable flavors to satisfy the totally different preferences of shoppers. [It] will be performed in factories in locations, akin to Singapore, the place the agricultural land is scarce. Lab-grown meat might be an answer to the rising meals safety drawback.”

Getting artistic with 3D printing

Cultivating meat in a lab entails way over simply stem cells. With a purpose to acquire shopper acceptance, scientists should efficiently recreate not solely the style but in addition the form and texture of typical meat. Image the unappetizing sight of a blob of cells — how doubtless are you to need to eat it, no matter how good it tastes?

“There are various challenges for culturing meat from cells, and one in all them is the shortage of scaffolds that present the structural assist for cells to multiply and become tissue,” Huang added.

To construct engineered tissue, organic scaffolds are required to assist information and assist the cells as they develop into their 3D buildings.

3D printing presents an affordable and time-efficient means of manufacturing them, however not simply any 3D printer would do. A specialised 3D printing approach referred to as electrohydrodynamic printing can be utilized to create ultra-fine and fibrous scaffolds which might be the proper environments for rising cells to get the vitamins and assist they want.

The fibers produced through electrohydrodynamic printing are used extensively in regenerative medication as these fibrous scaffolds resemble the construction of pure muscle tissue, the place cells are aligned and arranged into cable-like bundles referred to as fascicles. Nonetheless, the interpretation to cultured meats isn’t fully easy because the scaffolds utilized in biomedicine are sometimes comprised of artificial supplies, akin to plastics.

Lab-grown pork meat on printed scaffold

However Huang and his workforce weren’t daunted. “Utilizing 3D-printed edible scaffolds for meat tradition got here naturally to us,” mentioned Huang. “Nonetheless, edible […] scaffolds stay scarce in cultured meat manufacturing.”

Animal-derived proteins are a pure candidate to make the inks vital to construct the scaffolds. However these will be costly and Huang needed to additionally deal with the ingredient of sustainability in his strategy.

“3D-printed plant protein scaffolds might carry new [opportunities] to develop cell-based meat with actual meat look,” he defined. “However not solely that, they supply a cheap, edible materials to exchange costly animal-derived proteins as a result of these plant proteins will be extracted from spent grains, akin to spent corn meal in bioethanol vegetation and spent malt within the beer brewing trade.”

The inks and subsequently the scaffolds the workforce made had been subsequently derived from cereal proteins, like maize, barley, and rye, that are all plentiful crops, added Huang.

“Hordein or secalin, from barley or rye, had been blended with zein (obtained from spent corn meal) to formulate ink with favorable printability,” he continued. “The ensuing scaffolds comprised of the ink incorporates solely proteins from these grains and are thus edible (though it might not be tasty). They possess excessive porosity and correct microstructure for cells to develop meat texture.”

Getting the general public on board

Extra work is required earlier than an reasonably priced and real looking artificial meat will be made commercially obtainable. Along with hurdles associated to the scalability and effectivity of 3D printing previous to commercialization, Huang emphasizes that the general public must additionally get on board.

“Style, texture, value, and meals security are all issues that must be addressed,” he mentioned. “We have to give shoppers peace of thoughts in addition to nice pleasure of consuming lab-grown meat which might be protected, tasty, and having superior dietary worth in comparison with typical meat.”

Advances in 3D printing are nonetheless required to attain mass printing of scaffolds in a cheap method, in addition to growing edible inks that endow the scaffolds with desired performance. However Huang is optimistic these issues could also be solved in only a few years.

He says that he and his workforce will not be restraining themselves to simply 3D printing and that they’re at the moment growing various strategies to supply their structured scaffolds whereas bringing down the price of manufacturing them on a industrial scale.

“To increase the scope of our expertise, our lab has been engaged on culturing several types of animal cells, together with fats cells, on the scaffolds that may be made in numerous shapes and plant protein composites,” he continued. “Basically, we need to deal with the connection between the scaffolds and culturing of varied animal cells in order that we are able to rationally design scaffolds which might be optimum for culturing particular sort of meats.”  

Reference: Lingshan Su, Linzhi Jing, Dejian Huang, et al., 3D-Printed Prolamin Scaffolds for Cell-Primarily based Meat Tradition, Superior Supplies (2023). DOI: 10.1002/adma.202207397

Featured picture: Cultured pork meat on printed scaffolds demonstration