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Tue Jul 5 15:43:26 2005 Pacific Time

Growing Nuggets Without the Chicken? Paper Says Edible Meat Can Be Grown
in a Lab

COLLEGE PARK, Md., July 5 (AScribe Newswire) -- Experiments for NASA
space missions have shown that small amounts of edible meat can be
created in a lab. But the technology that could grow chicken nuggets
without the chicken, on a large scale, may not be just a science fiction
fantasy.

In a paper in the June 29 issue of Tissue Engineering, a team of
scientists, including University of Maryland doctoral student Jason
Matheny, propose two new techniques of tissue engineering that may one
day lead to affordable production of in vitro - lab grown -- meat for
human consumption. It is the first peer-reviewed discussion of the
prospects for industrial production of cultured meat.

"There would be a lot of benefits from cultured meat," says Matheny, who
studies agricultural economics and public health. "For one thing, you
could control the nutrients. For example, most meats are high in the
fatty acid Omega 6, which can cause high cholesterol and other health
problems. With in vitro meat, you could replace that with Omega 3, which
is a healthy fat."

"Cultured meat could also reduce the pollution that results from raising
livestock, and you wouldn't need the drugs that are used on animals
raised for meat."

PRIME WITHOUT THE RIB

The idea of culturing meat is to create an edible product that tastes
like cuts of beef, poultry, pork, lamb or fish and has the nutrients and
texture of meat.

Scientists know that a single muscle cell from a cow or chicken can be
isolated and divided into thousands of new muscle cells. Experiments
with fish tissue have created small amounts of in vitro meat in NASA
experiments researching potential food products for long-term space
travel, where storage is a problem.

"But that was a single experiment and was geared toward a special
situation - space travel," says Matheny. "We need a different approach
for large scale production."

Matheny's team developed ideas for two techniques that have potential
for large scale meat production. One is to grow the cells in large flat
sheets on thin membranes. The sheets of meat would be grown and
stretched, then removed from the membranes and stacked on top of one
another to increase thickness.

The other method would be to grow the muscle cells on small
three-dimensional beads that stretch with small changes in temperature.
The mature cells could then be harvested and turned into a processed
meat, like nuggets or hamburgers.

TREADMILL MEAT

To grow meat on a large scale, cells from several different kinds of
tissue, including muscle and fat, would be needed to give the meat the
texture to appeal to the human palate.

"The challenge is getting the texture right," says Matheny. "We have to
figure out how to 'exercise' the muscle cells. For the right texture,
you have to stretch the tissue, like a live animal would."

WHERE'S THE BEEF?

And, the authors agree, it might take work to convince consumers to eat
cultured muscle meat, a product not yet associated with being produced
artificially.

"On the other hand, cultured meat could appeal to people concerned about
food safety, the environment, and animal welfare, and people who want to
tailor food to their individual tastes," says Matheny. The paper even
suggests that meat makers may one day sit next to bread makers on the
kitchen counter.

"The benefits could be enormous," Matheny says. "The demand for meat is
increasing world wide -- China's meat demand is doubling every ten
years. Poultry consumption in India has doubled in the last five years."

"With a single cell, you could theoretically produce the world's annual
meat supply. And you could do it in a way that's better for the
environment and human health. In the long term, this is a very feasible
idea."

Matheny saw so many advantages in the idea that he joined several other
scientists in starting a nonprofit, New Harvest
(http://www.new-harvest.org <http://www.new-harvest.org/> ), to advance
the technology.

Other authors of the paper are Pieter Edelman of Wageningen University,
Netherlands; Douglas McFarland, South Dakota State University; and
Vladimir Mironov, Medical University of South Carolina.

ON THE WEB: For more information on cultured meat, see the New Harvest
website, http://www.new-harvest.org <http://www.new-harvest.org/> .

CONTACT: To request a copy of the paper, contact Larry Bernstein, Tissue
Engineering, lbernstein@...

Ellen Ternes, University of Maryland Media Relations, 301-405-4627,
eternes@...