Meet the new meat

Sophia Li

Author: Stephen Ornes
Published: September 8, 2013
https://student.societyforscience.org/article/meet-new-meat?mode=topic&context=39

Summary
Typical beef is made up of muscle tissue from a slaughtered cow. However, scientists from Maastricht University in the Netherlands have discovered a method of growing muscle tissue in a dish instead of killing animals for their meat. Mark Post is the lead scientist behind this new type of burger, and calls his creation "cultured beef." Post and his team created this new type of beef using stem cells harvested from a cow. Stem cells multiply rapidly and can differentiate into basically any type of cell. The scientists "fed" those cells to ensure their growth and to produce millions of more muscle cells. Eventually, these cells could be formed into small strips. Twenty thousand strips were needed to create just one patty. The scientists also added other ingredients to make the "cultured beef" resemble ground beef more closely. These patties were then sampled by culinary journalists and chefs, who thought that although the patty was not of ideal taste, they concluded that it tasted very similar to ground meat. Physiologists predict that there will be a dramatic increase in the demand for meat in the next 40 years, and that cultured beef may meet this demand without raising and slaughtering livestock. However, Post says that scientists still need to design new technologies to mass-produce and process the meat, and he hopes that cultured beef will be widely avail be at an affordable price within 20 years.

Connection
This article relates to molecular genetics and the study of stem cells. As a part of our studies of molecular genetics, we learned about the research involving stem cells stem cells and how they have the potential to differentiate into various types of cells. We learned that embryonic stem cells may be able to help people with disabling diseases that affect tissues by regrowing that tissue with stem cells. Mark Post and his research team of scientists are using this ability/concept of stem cells in a different way. They are applying the same techniques of molecular genetics that we learned in class to create artificial meat using stem cells. However, just like how the ethics of using embryonic stem cells to regrow body parts is still being debated, people may also be reluctant to eat "cultured beef" made from stem cells.