meat-growing

[x ox]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/6684854/Scientists-grow-meat-in-laboratory.html  - anyone know much about how they do this?  i know a lot of synthetic-organ-growth can use a kind of variation on a 3D printer - i wonder is it all the same here?

[Cathal Garvey]

Not sure on the specifics of their method, but I reckon they should be growing those heart cells that beat of their own accord upon reaching confluency. They'd have better tone and resemble meat more convincingly, I'd say.

2009/12/12 x ox <xoxo...@gmail.com>

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/6684854/Scientists-grow-meat-in-laboratory.html  - anyone know much about how they do this?  i know a lot of synthetic-organ-growth can use a kind of variation on a 3D printer - i wonder is it all the same here?

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[Ben Gadoua]

Cathal;

  I've grown some of those, there's an immortalized line called HL-1, just like any other cells grown in culture they only grow as a monolayer, even though they're plated on 1% gelatin and a fibronectin. You're not really going to get any meat out of them.

Ben

[Cathal Garvey]

Oh I realise, but whichever method they used to grow the "meat" in the feature above might be adaptable to HL-1s?

2009/12/14 Ben Gadoua <ben.g...@gmail.com>

Cathal;

  I've grown some of those, there's an immortalized line called HL-1, just like any other cells grown in culture they only grow as a monolayer, even though they're plated on 1% gelatin and a fibronectin. You're not really going to get any meat out of them.

Ben

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[Ben Gadoua]

Cathal:

  Highly doubt it, heart cells are way different from those in any type of meat you'd want to eat, smooth verses striated. You'd also need to add vascularization and everything for any sizable amount of meat, it'd be nearly impossible to do it cheaply, which is why all this "meat grown in a lab" stuff is stupid.

Ben

[Alec Nielsen]

On Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 6:38 PM, Ben Gadoua <ben.g...@gmail.com> wrote:
> You'd also need to add
> vascularization and everything for any sizable amount of meat, it'd be
> nearly impossible to do it cheaply, which is why all this "meat grown in a
> lab" stuff is stupid.

Animals do it cheaply. We just need more experience engineering
differentiation and pattern formation. It can (and likely will)
happen.

Alec

[Lee Nelson]

  I've grown some of those, there's an immortalized line called HL-1, just like any other cells grown in culture they only grow as a monolayer, even though they're plated on 1% gelatin and a fibronectin. You're not really going to get any meat out of them.

ultra - thin - sliced?  ; )

But really, if the issue is muscle tone, maybe some electrodes can be put in the chamber and pulsed to make the muscles contract. Like they do with the hearts, just different tissue.

[Eugen Leitl]

On Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 06:48:24PM -0800, Alec Nielsen wrote:

> Animals do it cheaply. We just need more experience engineering

Animals do not need sterile conditions and rich medium.

> differentiation and pattern formation. It can (and likely will)
> happen.

Not on animal cell culture. Consider engineering microcephalic
animals and processing single cell organisms instead.

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Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
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[Cathal Garvey]

Price is a matter of process, scale and efficiency. The process is being developed, but will scale up versus resources required far more elegantly and efficiently than farming real meat does (and if you disagree, tell it to the country-sized dead space in the atlantic off America: blamed solely on farming. Also tell it to the rainforests, which lose more land to cattle ranching than any other effect).

Cost is drastically more complicated, because you're competing with subsidies and farming lobby groups. Modern farming in the first world survives by subsidy or by unreasoning and damaging concentration of production. In-Vitro-Meat (IVM?) holds much promise as a way of keeping industrialised production up to demand while keeping costs and waste outputs low...but it probably won't be so lucky securing subsidies, so it'll have to compete very hard to succeed.

As far as vascularisation is concerned, I think that won't be too much of a problem. Cells are already adept at recruiting vascularisation in a chaotic self-organising fashion, all that should be required here is a suitable input source and output source, and a way to encourage 3-dimensional growth of tissue. I imagine it will require at least 3 cell types; your muscular cells, a matrix-forming tissue to encourage 3D growth, and vascular stem cells. I imagine growth chambers will feature pumps pre-grown with vascular cells that can grow vasculature into the tissues.

This is certainly not impossible, and if the expected meat-eating demands of 9 billion people are to be met by 2050, it's essential technology. There's just not enough land to grow that much meat, even if you topple the rainforests and teach people to farm. Meat is just plain less efficient than crops, and we're already suffering the effects of this inefficiency.

[Eugen Leitl]

On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 10:15:52AM +0000, Cathal Garvey wrote:

> Price is a matter of process, scale and efficiency. The process is being
> developed, but will scale up versus resources required far more elegantly
> and efficiently than farming real meat does (and if you disagree, tell it to

How do you scale animal cell culture, without scaling the medium volume?
This isn't single cell algae, single cell animal or mycoprotein.
At some 20-700 USD/l (assuming, it's serum-free) it will make Kobe beef
look like a bargain. And you know what, at least with Kobe you'll get
your value for your money.

> the country-sized dead space in the atlantic off America: blamed solely on

It is a lot easier to change agriculture and animal husbandry than to
make healthy, affordable food from animal cell lines.

> farming. Also tell it to the rainforests, which lose more land to cattle
> ranching than any other effect).

Tell it to the people who insist to eat meat at every opportunity.

> Cost is drastically more complicated, because you're competing with
> subsidies and farming lobby groups. Modern farming in the first world
> survives by subsidy or by unreasoning and damaging concentration of
> production. In-Vitro-Meat (IVM?) holds much promise as a way of keeping
> industrialised production up to demand while keeping costs and waste outputs

How come you think the costs will be low?

> low...but it probably won't be so lucky securing subsidies, so it'll have to
> compete very hard to succeed.
>
> As far as vascularisation is concerned, I think that won't be too much of a
> problem. Cells are already adept at recruiting vascularisation in a chaotic
> self-organising fashion, all that should be required here is a suitable
> input source and output source, and a way to encourage 3-dimensional growth
> of tissue. I imagine it will require at least 3 cell types; your muscular
> cells, a matrix-forming tissue to encourage 3D growth, and vascular stem
> cells. I imagine growth chambers will feature pumps pre-grown with vascular
> cells that can grow vasculature into the tissues.
>
> This is certainly not impossible, and if the expected meat-eating demands of

Making it cost-effective is impossible. This isn't medicine. Here costs
matter.

> 9 billion people are to be met by 2050, it's essential technology. There's

That is a large if. Adaptive changes in the diet are a lot more probable.

> just not enough land to grow that much meat, even if you topple the
> rainforests and teach people to farm. Meat is just plain less efficient than
> crops, and we're already suffering the effects of this inefficiency.

Sustainability is a function of technology. Right now there are too many people
on this planet for a given technology level and given behaviour footprint. Given
demand growth, the average nonsustainable consumption footprint will grow a lot
quicker than population growth (unless we pull a quick die-off, and join the
other species we holocausted in the fossil record of the current extinction event).

[Cathal Garvey]

Oh I agree that first priority be a reduction in consumption of meat, but as meat eating is seen as a fashionable or status-reaffirming diet (meat for the wealthy in the second/third world, "manliness" in the first) you'll be waiting too long to make a difference. People need to be educated but you have to reach out to the obstinates too.

And while I agree that the costs when compared to existing cell culture are prohibitive, it is my conviction that the costs for labs are inflated 100sfold. The ingredients needed for DMEM are no more demanding than those needed for some foods, but it's 20-500 euro a bottle? Producers of IVM will either demand a better price or make media in-house.

On Dec 14, 2009 10:54 AM, "Eugen Leitl" <eu...@leitl.org> wrote:

On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 10:15:52AM +0000, Cathal Garvey wrote: > Price is a matter of process, scal...

How do you scale animal cell culture, without scaling the medium volume?
This isn't single cell algae, single cell animal or mycoprotein.
At some 20-700 USD/l (assuming, it's serum-free) it will make Kobe beef
look like a bargain. And you know what, at least with Kobe you'll get
your value for your money.

> the country-sized dead space in the atlantic off America: blamed solely on

It is a lot easier to change agriculture and animal husbandry than to
make healthy, affordable food from animal cell lines.

> farming. Also tell it to the rainforests, which lose more land to cattle > ranching than any othe...

Tell it to the people who insist to eat meat at every opportunity.

> Cost is drastically more complicated, because you're competing with > subsidies and farming lobb...

How come you think the costs will be low?

> low...but it probably won't be so lucky securing subsidies, so it'll have to > compete very hard ...

Making it cost-effective is impossible. This isn't medicine. Here costs
matter.

> 9 billion people are to be met by 2050, it's essential technology. There's

That is a large if. Adaptive changes in the diet are a lot more probable.

> just not enough land to grow that much meat, even if you topple the > rainforests and teach peopl...

Sustainability is a function of technology. Right now there are too many people
on this planet for a given technology level and given behaviour footprint. Given
demand growth, the average nonsustainable consumption footprint will grow a lot
quicker than population growth (unless we pull a quick die-off, and join the
other species we holocausted in the fossil record of the current extinction event).

-- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ____________________________...

[Nathan McCorkle]

On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 4:47 AM, Eugen Leitl <eu...@leitl.org> wrote:

On Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 06:48:24PM -0800, Alec Nielsen wrote:

> Animals do it cheaply. We just need more experience engineering

Animals do not need sterile conditions and rich medium.

Umm, grass is a rich medium, for sure. Tissues are sterile, as long as the immune system is functioning properly. 

 

> differentiation and pattern formation. It can (and likely will)
> happen.

Not on animal cell culture. Consider engineering microcephalic
animals and processing single cell organisms instead.

Why can't we just make a headless cow, with its neural center converging onto a microprocessor control, program the feeding patterns and where it will waste, sounds a lot easier than finding some way to build a better system from the ground up.

 

--
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
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[Cathal Garvey]

The tissues you won't use and the systems you'd have to coddle just to support the muscle would form a significant waste stream. If you can learn to intrrface nerves, hormone-secreting glands and muscles to a microprocessor like that, then growing muscles in vitro is really the least of your challenges.

Besides, "headless cow" doesn't solve the efficiency/environmental angles at all, it just provides a macabre "veggie ok" cow.

On Dec 14, 2009 11:22 AM, "Nathan McCorkle" <nmz...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 4:47 AM, Eugen Leitl <eu...@leitl.org> wrote: > > On Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 06...

Umm, grass is a rich medium, for sure. Tissues are sterile, as long as the immune system is functioning properly. 

  > > > > differentiation and pattern formation. It can (and likely will) > > happen. > > Not on an...

Why can't we just make a headless cow, with its neural center converging onto a microprocessor control, program the feeding patterns and where it will waste, sounds a lot easier than finding some way to build a better system from the ground up.

 

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[Nathan McCorkle]

On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 6:40 AM, Cathal Garvey <cathal...@gmail.com> wrote:

The tissues you won't use and the systems you'd have to coddle just to support the muscle would form a significant waste stream. If you can learn to intrrface nerves, hormone-secreting glands and muscles to a microprocessor like that, then growing muscles in vitro is really the least of your challenges.

DMEM has to come from somewhere, serum as well (though there are serum free media)... how will anything be more efficient than grass? The only thing I think could save this idea is that you can't grow cows vertically, whereas tissue culture can be grown in some skyscraper on each floor. We ultimately are limited by energy input, which is predominantly based on the sun. When nuclear power comes along, then we can waste all the energy we want to make DMEM or other. Unless we can find a way to make biological HEPA filters that we grow in a petri dish, can we really overcome these biological systems inefficiencies with replacement of a manufactured system? Seems far off right now. 

Just being/feeling skeptical, not hopeless.

Besides, "headless cow" doesn't solve the efficiency/environmental angles at all, it just provides a macabre "veggie ok" cow.

On Dec 14, 2009 11:22 AM, "Nathan McCorkle" <nmz...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 4:47 AM, Eugen Leitl <eu...@leitl.org> wrote: > > On Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 06...

Umm, grass is a rich medium, for sure. Tissues are sterile, as long as the immune system is functioning properly. 

  > > > > differentiation and pattern formation. It can (and likely will) > > happen. > > Not on an...

Why can't we just make a headless cow, with its neural center converging onto a microprocessor control, program the feeding patterns and where it will waste, sounds a lot easier than finding some way to build a better system from the ground up.

 

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[Ben Gadoua]

Cathal;

   I'd just like to comment on the fact that you think tissue vascularization is easy, it's not. There are many factors involved, and it's much more than adding three cell lines, for several reason. 1. There's no such thing as vascular stem cells, really, you need endothelial cells and smooth muscle cells. 2. Putting media into what's vascularlized is expensive, endothelial media is expensive, 200 bucks for 500mL and that's not counting the cost of serum. 3. Vascular networks just don't grow, not when there's an amalgam of other cell tyes there, yes, they do grow when you have smooth muscle cells and endothelial cells, but when you start growing tissue they often don't grow right, sometimes the wrong combintation of VEGF splice variants at different stages of development will cause regression of the vascular network you've created. These are just a few of the many problems facing in-vitro vascular work.

Ben

[Jake]

You're never going to beat grass and cheap grains as a feedstock.

I don't see where the demand is either. Frankly I don't think people would buy and eat in vitro meat even if it were *cheaper* than real meat. And it's never, ever going to be cheaper than real meat, unless basic economics gets turned upside down. I might try it as a novelty, but you'll probably find that people prefer natural products over franken-food. So there's really no compelling reason to develop in vitro meat. It doesn't solve the energy input or cost problem. Everything else is of questionable benefit also. There's no reason to think the waste will be any less and the utility of the "waste" will probably be much lower or at least have it's potential uses undeveloped.

The real advances will obviously be in making better cows. Since cows are already about the most ideal meat source you can even imagine I don't see any major gains in the near future. We can probably expect incrementally better cows that produce more meat of a higher quality more quickly.

In vitro meat is basically a solution in search of a problem. A scientific curiosity, but nothing more.


-Jake
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[Simon Quellen Field]

But Soylent Green tastes so good...

[Nathan McCorkle]

I think that a stationary headless cow could work well, it wastes directly into a bio-fermenter collection system, and is fed mechanically ground foodstuffs (grass, etc...), and can be grown vertically. It would have all the systems to protect itself from infection, wouldn't suffer from problems such as sickness in feed lots because waste would be contained directly.

Cows present problems in grasslands because unlike buffalo they cut the grass down to the ground and it can't regrow well, if mechanical processing of genetically engineered grass (either using traditional or re-engineered photosynthesis), and the transport to the cow skyscraper was cheap enough, this could work I think. Maybe if the fields were radially located around the cow-scraper, transport would be minimized.

I would eat headless, legless cow... especially if I worked on creating the monstrosities. Without a brain of their own to feedback, could PETA or whoever say they could feel? Can a computer feel? (eerie music plays) 

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[mostromundo]

I wonder if you could get a chicken embryo to produce nothing but a
vascular system and muscle tissue as it develops, when you cracked the
egg it would just be a lump of chicken meat. Would it be possible to
transfect a chickens ovocytes so that all of it's embryos would grow
in such a specific, abnormal way? Or, I suppose you would need to
transfect the mother chickens' embryo so that all of her descendant
embryos would be little chicken nuggets. Or something. Anyhow, eggs
are already largely protein, if (big if) you could convince the
chicken embryo to turn it into muscle tissue (with a heart and
arteries to keep the cell mass alive), it might be a more scalable
than growing clumps of cells in big bioreactors. The inside of an egg
is a rich, sterile medium!

-Micah

[Simon Quellen Field]

Am I the only one who thinks eggs taste better than chicken?

Of course, here on the farm, we get them fresh daily from our

chickens, so they taste a lot better than the ones in the

supermarket (and I know what went into them, and how the

birds were cared for).

Wasting an egg to turn it into a McNugget does not sound like

an improvement.

[Nathan McCorkle]

Eggs are indeed a great source of animal protein, and while I can't say they taste better than meat, they are damn good. How efficient are eggs? Other than cholesterol they're probably the same protein distribution as meat, though they have a different mouth feel and flavor for sure. 

[Eugen Leitl]

On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 08:09:04PM -0600, Jake wrote:
>
> You're never going to beat grass and cheap grains as a feedstock.

Indeed. Though single-cell algae are probably even better as

feedstock.

> I don't see where the demand is either. Frankly I don't think people would
> buy and eat in vitro meat even if it were *cheaper* than real meat. And

Have you ever eaten quorn? Or do you know someone who ate it?
It is lots less disgusting than farmed meat but even so
people are not leafcutter ants.

> it's never, ever going to be cheaper than real meat, unless basic
> economics gets turned upside down. I might try it as a novelty,

I wouldn't. I'd rather go mostly vegetarian.

> but you'll probably find that people prefer natural products
> over franken-food. So there's really no compelling reason

Indeed. Industrial processes encourage to keep cutting corners.
You will find that most meat will move across regulation gradients
to cheapest jurisdictions. Then you can't even be sure whether
it's not soylent green you're eating.

> to develop in vitro meat. It doesn't solve the energy input
> or cost problem. Everything else is of questionable benefit also.
> There's no reason to think the waste will be any less and the
> utility of the "waste" will probably be much lower or at least have it's potential uses undeveloped.
>
> The real advances will obviously be in making better cows.
> Since cows are already about the most ideal meat source you
> can even imagine I don't see any major gains in the near future.
> We can probably expect incrementally better cows that produce
> more meat of a higher quality more quickly.

The problem with sentient animals is suffering. Of course you
can target some knockout mutants, but this will make self grooming
and raising offspring more difficult.

> In vitro meat is basically a solution in search of a problem.
> A scientific curiosity, but nothing more.

A much more interesting problem is modifying people to tap into
other resources. Think of incremental advances in parenteral
feeding as a point of departure. These 100 W of baseline
metabolism are well invested.

(Of course, long-term we'll all go solid state, so that's
a dead end).

--
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org

[Cathal Garvey]

"(Of course, long-term we'll all go solid state, so that's
a dead end)"

The sooner the better!

2009/12/15 Eugen Leitl <eu...@leitl.org>

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[ris-d]

I've thought about the headless cow concept and arrived at precisely
the same end point as you, Nathan. Knockout legs and certain parts of
nervous system and stream waste into a fermenter. Easy, right?
It's grotesque, but what could seem worse than the present CAFO and
slaughter industry?
Anyway, I would wager if it tastes good and is cheap, people will buy
it.

> > diybio+un...@googlegroups.com<diybio%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>
> > .

[ris-d]

Hang on Piper, I didn't meant to be understood that way. Of course it
isn't more grotesque than any other cell culture.
I mean from a standpoint of social acceptance. As an example, imagine
trying to get Americans to eat farmed cockroaches. They're animals
like cows, probably contain plenty of nutrients. But it's just going
to gross people out.
Just like headless, legless cows stacked 20 deep in growth chambers
will gross people out.
My point is, if you advocate for research into humane meat production
(as I do) I think it is essential you keep in mind the fact that most
people (including gungho animal welfare people I've talked to) are
probably going to think you're crazy for even suggesting this.

[Lee Nelson]

and a way to encourage 3-dimensional growth of tissue. I imagine it will require at least 3 cell types; your muscular cells, a matrix-forming tissue to encourage 3D growth, and vascular stem cells. I imagine growth chambers will feature pumps pre-grown with vascular cells that can grow vasculature into the tissues.

3D Printer Builds Artificial Blood Vessels

http://www.informationweek.com/news/healthcare/patient/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=222003031&pgno=1&queryText=&isPrev=

[Marnia Johnston]

Artists have already explored this; see Oron Catts and  the Victimless Meat Project, Victimless Leather Project. http://www.tca.uwa.edu.au/
-Marnia