Scientists have developed a piece of chicken the size of a nugget using a new method that can provide nutrients and oxygen to artificial tissues, marking a major breakthrough in meat cultivated.
While the laboratories were produce realized fabrics For more than a decade, the previous methods have only made small dispersed cellular balls less than 1 millimeter thick, or about 0.04 inch. It was a challenge to maintain the groups of cells together in a way that imitated the texture of the muscle more closely, And the current generation of laboratory -cultivated meats is often tiny pieces grouped around edible scaffolding.
However, a team of researchers in Japan has reached new lengths, cultivating a single square chicken piece of 2.7 inch (7 centimeters) wide and 0.7 inch (2 centimeters) thick with a new laboratory tool, according to an article published Wednesday in the newspaper Biotechnology trends. Weighing about a third of an ounce, the artificial chicken muscle is a small bite, but would be the largest piece of cultivated meat in the world.
Scientists have developed a bioreactor that imitated a circulatory system, using 50 hollow fibers acting as veins to distribute nutrients and oxygen to meat, keeping living cells and guiding them to develop in the specified directions.
The bioreactor has delivered nutrients and oxygen through the tissue using tiny covered fibers designed with precision, using a method which, for the first time, could support growth over relatively long cellular distances.
This piece of chicken was not made using food quality materials and scientists did not taste it.
“It is exciting to discover that these tiny fibers can also help create artificial fabrics,” said Shoji Takeuchi, co-author of the study and professor at Tokyo University in Japan, said in a press release. Hollow fibers had already been used in domestic water filters and dialysis machines for patients with kidney disease.
The new approach, he said, could be an evolving means of producing full cultivated meat, adding that it could produce progress not only in food production, but also regenerative medicineBiohybrid medication and robotics test.
The new technology could accelerate the commercial viability of cultivated meat, but there are other challenges to come.
The replication of the texture and taste of whole cut meat remains “difficult”, said Takeuchi, adding that larger pieces will also require better oxygen delivery.
In addition, the elimination process of tiny hollow fibers that help cultivate meat, currently carried out by researchers manually, should be automated, he said, adding that future laboratory meat will also have to be manufactured with food quality materials before being able to be consumed.
In the United States, consumers have mixed attitudes towards cultivated meat. About a third say that they are not willing to try cultivated chicken and 40% reject the cultivated pork, according to A survey in 2024 Directed by Purdue University in Indiana.
Ethical and environmental concerns can encourage consumers to opt plant -based meat substitutesBut cultivated meat presents a different obstacle to partly acceptance due to perceived food risks, such as its nature, its ignorance and its concerns as to whether it is sure or healthy to eat, According to a study in 2022.
Currently, there is little meat cultivated on the market, but they can be legally sold to consumers in three countries: Singapore, the United States and Israel. Only two Californian companies are allowed to sell cultivated meat in the United States, while Florida and Alabama have prohibited its sales.
In 2013, the first hamburger cultivated in the world based on cow stem cells was cooked and publicly tasted in London, to ambivalent criticisms.