Scientists have cultivated a piece of chicken the size of a pepita using a new method that can deliver nutrients and oxygen to artificial tissues, marking a great advance in cultivated meat.
While laboratories have produced realistic fabrics for more than a decade, the previous methods only made small and scattered cell balls of less than 1 millimeter thick, or approximately 0.04 inches. It was a challenge to maintain cell groups together in a way that imitated the muscle texture more closely, And the current generation of laboratory grip are often small pieces grouped around a edible scaffolding.
However, a team of researchers in Japan has achieved new lengths, cultivating a single square piece of chicken chicken 2.7 inches (7 centimeters) wide and 0.7 inches (2 centimeters) thick with a new laboratory tool, according to an article published on Wednesday in the magazine trends in biotechnology. With a weight of approximately one third of an ounce, the artificial chicken muscle is a small bite, but it is believed that it is the largest part of the world of meat cultivated in laboratory.
The scientists developed a bioreactor that imitated a circulatory system, using 50 hollow fibers that act as veins to distribute nutrients and oxygen to the meat, keeping live cells and guiding them to grow in the specified directions.
The bioreactor delivered nutrients and oxygen through the tissue using small hollow fibers with precision, using a method that, for the first time, could maintain growth in relatively long cell distances.
This piece of chicken was not made with food degrees, and scientists have not tried it.
“It is exciting to discover that these small fibers can also effectively help artificial fabrics,” said Shoji Takeuchi, co -author of the study and professor at the University of Tokyo in Japan, in a statement. Hollow fibers had previously used domestic water filters and dialysis machines for patients with kidney disease.
The new approach, he said, could be a scalable way of producing complete cultivated meat, adding that it could generate advances not only in food production, but also in regenerative medicine, drug tests and biohribrid robotics.
The new technology could accelerate the commercial viability of cultivated meat, but there are more challenges ahead.
Replicating the texture and taste of full cutting meat is still “difficult,” said Takeuchi, added that the largest parts will also require a better oxygen supply.
In addition, the process of eliminating small hollow fibers that help cultivate meat, currently conducted by researchers manually, must be automated, he said, added that future laboratory meat should also be done with food degree materials before they can be eaten.
Consumers in the United States have mixed attitudes towards cultivated meat. Around a third says that they are not willing to try the cultivated chicken, and 40% rejected the cultivated pork, according to a 2024 survey conducted by the University of Purdue in Indiana.
Ethical and environmental concerns can incite consumers to opt for plant -based meat substitutes, but cultivated meat presents a different obstacle to acceptance in part due to the perceived risks of food, such as their antinaturality, lack of familiarity and concerns about whether it is safe or healthy to eat, according to a study of 2022.
Currently, there is little meat cultivated in the market, but they can be legally sold to consumers in three countries: Singapore, the United States and Israel. Only two California companies are authorized to sell cultivated meat in the United States, while Florida and Alabama have banned their sales.
In 2013, the first hamburger cultivated in the laboratory of the world made of cow stem cells was publicly cooked and proven in London, to ambivalent criticisms.
