As reported last night in A Brave New World with Stephen Hawkings and in Sky news today, science is taking a turn towards the culinary, with scientists looking to create the world's first lab-created burger! In answer to growing world hunger and to reduce the ecological impact of farming meat-yielding animals worldwide, Mark Post at the University of Maastricht is aiming to grow cultures of meat cells dervived from meat leftovers from slaughterhouses. These cells at a certain point will then be seeded onto collagen fibres where they will grow to form strips of meat. The muscle strands, like in nature, will be exercised by being stretched with the aid of velco strips to create bulk. All the while the cells are nurtured and grown in growth medium rich with carbohydrates, amino acids and fatty acids. When mature, the strips can be harvested and then, I guess, grilled! To make a fabulous burger! Hmm-mmm!
If an edible product can be produced from this technique, the implications are huge and can change the way we view meat and food forever. For example, we can stop feeling guilty that animals are being slaughtered en masse for our consumption and we will all be obsessed with which university our meat was produced from (Those with a 5-star RAE rating will of course feature in Michelin star restaurants). However, Post warns that the resulting produce will not be cheap. He reckons that the resulting burger will cost a whopper £200,000! This cost is justified, what with the great technical skill, the time and labour undertaken to grow and maintain the meat cells.
One beef burger and one lamb burger in the making...
'Hell yeah!' every cell culture scientist will shout! For behind the glitzy, dizzying thoughts of solving world hunger and saving all those cute fluffy farm animals (not to mention having a permanent work contract) are the tears and the pure frustration that every cell culture scientist will have experienced in just growing and maintaining those damn cells, nevermind processing them for human consumption! Mammalian cell culture is a notoriously delicate process: everything from the nutrients in the media to the temperature of the incubator and the level of carbon dioxide present has to be perfect; otherwise, when you look down the microscope all you will see are dead cells floating on by. There is also the problem of infection, as the cells have no immunity and cannot be made immune: infections from mycoplasma and yeasts, all present in the air or carried on in by the researcher on their skin or clothes, can cause massive cell death of every sample present in that lab. The infective agent can be difficult to trace and eradicate, and I have seen some researcher friends sigh and shake their heads as their work is being delayed for months as they try to solve this problem. So sorry sir, but dinner is delayed. Would you like some lab grown fries while you wait...?
Oh, us poor plebby scientists are donkeys enough - what with be underpaid, unappreciated and unrecognised. To end up being burger growers and flipper PhD is the ultimate low - and even then the job doesn't get easier!
An 8oz myco-burger with fries, coming up!
Source: A Brave New World with Stephen Hawkings
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