The availability of more open-access formulations will provide a foundation to enable both academic researchers and startup companies to develop their own customized formulations with far less effort and cost.
Research to align on the appropriate assays would introduce standardization that can accelerate R&D efforts.
GFI has developed a research funding database featuring filtering capabilities for narrowing available opportunities by research topic.
Because cultivated meat replicates the fundamental biology of the source animal, animal-level data may be informative for predicting cellular behavior in culture.
Connecting the buyers and sellers of the ingredients, inputs, and services needed to produce alternative proteins.
Oleaginous yeast can convert sugars into fats that impart flavor and mouthfeel to alternative proteins, and they can accumulate lipids within their cell bodies to inhibit oxidation. New research on lipid encapsulation in yeast should investigate the efficacy of yeast species for the accumulation and storage of lipids—including lipids with the same profile as animal lipids.
Prolonging continuous cultivation of filamentous fungi by suppressing hyper-branching to improve texture and boost production efficiency.
To recapitulate meat’s fat profile, research is required to determine which lipids muscle and fat cells can produce efficiently—and from which precursors—and which lipids they can absorb directly from the culture media. Understanding the effects of specific fats on organoleptic properties will help to focus these efforts.
Proliferation and high-density cell growth are fundamentally important to scaling cultivated meat production. Recent demonstrations of stem cell expansion in 3D microenvironments such as encapsulated spheres or tubules can generate cell densities far higher than industry-leading stirred tank bioreactors with minimal loss of cell viability or stemness. As a scalable platform, the use of 3D microenvironments for stem cell expansion and differentiation—particularly with the relevant cell types used in cultivated meat—warrants further investigation.
