Mass Production of Tissue- Engineered Meat a Possibility

The CEO of the company "Modern Meadow" has announced that his company has and will continue to work on the process of 3-D bioprinting leather. The company believes that the leather will be mass-produced by 2017 and manufactured meat may follow in several years. Modern Meadow's main focus will be on leather for the time being.

While meat may be a more helpful and useful use of their funding, skin is a much simpler material to imitate. Additionally, leather will be a much less controversial material to the public. The company has found that only 40% of the population would be willing to try this manufactured meat, while very few would have a problem using this mass-produced leather. In fact, this process should go over very well with the public, as the scientists will not need to kill any animals.

The scientists have already come up with the process and just need to find a way to increase the scale of production. In other words, they face engineering, not scientific obstacles. The five step process includes taking punch biopsies of donor animals. While these animals need to be dead, the researchers are using animals that were already going to be killed for meat or skin. The researchers then make necessary modifications to these cells.

By using a bio reactor or growth apparatus, the cells multiply from millions to billions in number. They are then centrifuged to eliminate the growth medium of the cells and to lump them together into clumps of cells.

These aggregates are fused together using a process known as bioassembly. There are still several possible processes and Modern Meadow is still trying to find the best approach.



The complex process of manufacturing leather


The scientists then put these fused cells into a bioreactor and given time to mature. They create an environment which allows "nature to take over" the growing process of these cells. This increases the growth of the collagen cells

Several weeks later, the food supply is cut off. The skin tissues turn into hide. The leather goes through a short tanning process that minimalizes the use of toxic chemicals.

The future of this field is very promising. The researchers are confident of the science involved in this process. They just face engineering problems that they will overcome in the next few years. If the growth is successful on a large scale, thousands of lives of animals would be saved. If meat can be produced in several years, millions of animals’ lives would be saved. Tissue-engineering may be the answer to prevent different types of food shortages around the world.

 

Source:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=tissue-engineered-leather-could-be-mass-produced-by-2017