Formulating media with macromolecular crowding
2020-2021
Drs. Che Connon and Ricardo Gouveia are exploring the potential of macromolecular crowding (MMC) to promote myoblast and fat cell proliferation and enhance the production yield and quality of cultivated meat.
PRODUCTION PLATFORM: Cultivated
TECHNOLOGY SECTOR: Cell culture media

Project aims
This project designs new high-throughput platforms to test the impact of different media formulations on muscle cell proliferation and differentiation. It also custom designs new serum-free, MMC-supplemented media formulations for improved muscle cell proliferation and tissue formation.
This work aims to increase the cell density and yield of cultivated meat production, as well as reduce media costs and the need for growth factors.
Principal researchers

Dr. Che Connon
Professor of Tissue Engineering, Newcastle University, UK
Dr. Connon works on culturing cells toward self-organizing 3-D functional systems and possesses a strong track record of academic publications and commercialization.

Dr. Ricardo Gouveia
Research Fellow, Newcastle University, UK
Dr. Gouveia has expertise in culturing cells and developing high-throughput bioprocess techniques. He is also a New Harvest Fellow.

Scale-up technologies for the manufacture of adherent cells
Check out this recent article from Dr. Connon on bioreactor scaling.
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