CulFish
2024-2025
This project will produce an animal-free source of nutrients from upcycled waste streams for fish cells, enabling reductions in the cost of cultivated fish.
Production platform: Cultivated
Technology sector: Cell culture media, Computational modeling
Project aims
The ability to produce cultivated fish cells will depend on the capability of the cells to grow in serum-free, low-cost media. This project aims to create a low-cost serum-free media and components to allow other companies to produce fish cells at low cost. To enable serum-free, low-cost media, we will utilize valorized plant material for the basis of low-cost media. This cost reduction will bring cultivated fish closer to price parity with conventional fish.
Currently, basal medium formulations such as DMEM and L-15 have been shown to work, but they are not optimized for specific fish cell lines. This project will investigate the effects of basal media components such as omega-3 fatty acids, amino acids, vitamins, and other micronutrients to optimize a media for fish cells. The aim of this investigation is to produce an optimized composition of nutrients, allowing fish cells to better propagate in an optimized animal-free cell culture medium.
Principal researchers
Thor Seneca Thorsen
CSO, Management
Nordic Virtual Pastures, Denmark
Thor Thorsen holds a PhD in Biochemistry from Copenhagen University (CU), working within protein-based drug design and cellular neuropharmacology. He was a postdoc in the laboratory of Brian Kobilka (Nobel Laureate) at Stanford University. Returning to Denmark, he was an assistant professor at CU & established the company Cymab before joining NVP as the CSO.
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