Microalgae for sustainable cultivated meat

Project aims

The amount of food-grade cell culture media used, and subsequently disposed of, by the cultivated meat industry is massive, and significantly increasing in the coming years. The aim of this project is to revolutionize the handling of used cell culture media from cultivated meat production by establishing innovative circular economy pipelines. This will be done through the use of microalgae to recycle liquid cell culture waste products.

Microalgae are highly versatile and capable of growing in a large variety of mixtures, and preliminary data demonstrate that re-processed exhausted cell culture media can be a suitable substrate for growing microalgae. Despite being generally considered waste material, exhausted cell culture media is a rich mixture containing sugars, amino acids, vitamins, and inorganic salts. Thus, this project will transform this waste material into substrates promoting microalgal growth in a cost-effective manner. In parallel, microalgal biomass will be converted into amino acids and peptides (hydrolysates) suitable for boosting new rounds of cell culture for cultivated meat production.