New advances in computer technology to path the way to affordable and accessible cultivated meat

New advances in computer technology to path the way to affordable and accessible cultivated meat

10 September 2020
News
With more and more scientists and start-ups advocating for cultivated meat due to its lesser footprint on society, cultivated meat is on its way to potentially become a promising sustainable alternative to industrially farmed meat. The Cultivated Meat Modeling Consortium (CMMC), an interdisciplinary working group applying computing techniques to the cultivated meat sector, will now tackle one of the biggest challenges of bringing cultivated meat to the consumer marketplace: the high cost of the growth medium.

Cultivated meat is produced using cells from animals that are grown in bioreactors in a laboratory setting. In order to stimulate cell growth, the use of a growth medium comes into play. The high costs connected to this process not only limit the amount of cultivated meat that is currently being produced but also make cultivated meat a very pricey product for the average consumer. For reference: The first burger made of cultivated animal cells cost more than 280,000 Dollars. 

Since then, there have been many advancements in the production technology, with one pound of cultivated meat costing only 1,7000 Dollars in 2018 while just two years earlier it cost more than 18,000 Dollars per pound.

By developing computational modeling approaches, the CMMC wants to further optimise growth processes and cultivated meat product characteristics. Using computer modeling and the simulation of metabolic pathways that occur during the cell growth, they aim to predict and determine the optimal concentrations of expensive media components, which will help them compose the media with the exact right concentration allowing the growing cells to efficiently use substrates leading to maximum growth. This will serve two purposes: cutting the cost on expensive media components by replacing costly substrates by cheaper ones and by optimising the composition of media for improved growth, and lower production costs by increasing productivity.