Opportunities for applying biomedical production and manufacturing methods to the development of the clean meat industry

TLDR

Clean meat, produced by cell culture, is an emerging biotechnology aimed at mitigating environmental, sustainability, public health, and animal welfare issues of industrial animal agriculture, yet it requires cost‑effective, scalable cell‑culture solutions beyond those currently available from the biomedical industry. The study seeks to develop tools for clean meat that simultaneously advance the technology and lower costs for biomedical and therapeutic applications. The authors propose applying existing biomedical products and manufacturing methods to clean meat and fostering partnerships among academia, cell‑based therapeutic firms, and the clean meat sector to create synergistic product development.

Abstract

Clean meat (meat grown in cell culture rather than obtained from animal slaughter) is an emerging biotechnology industry that will ameliorate the serious environmental, sustainability, global public health, and animal welfare concerns of industrial animal agriculture. While many technologies and products developed for the cell therapy industry can already be applied to clean meat, significant opportunities exist to expand product lines to supply this emerging industry. Large-scale cell culture for clean meat production presents a number of unique requirements that are not currently met by existing products and processes from the biomedical industry − most notably related to cost constraints and scale requirements. Developing these tools for clean meat would simultaneously advance the technology and reduce costs for biomedical and therapeutic applications. We will discuss new applications of current biomedical products and manufacturing methods for clean meat, as well as opportunities for synergistic product development through partnerships between academic researchers, established industry players in cell-based therapeutics, and the emerging clean meat industry.