Smart scaffolds for cultivated meat

Project aims

This project will help develop a “smart scaffold” to facilitate the production of complex cultivated meat products with multiple cell types organized in a specific tissue shape. This would provide a cost-effective platform to produce differentiated muscle.

One approach to reduce the price of producing cultivated meat is decreasing the amount of growth factors (GFs) required for proliferation and differentiation of muscle cells. GFs currently account for ~90% of cell culture media price. Since GFs are supplied in the growth media, most cells make limited contact with them and much goes to waste. This, together with the inherent instability of GFs, severely limits their efficacy. BioBetter produces growth factors in tobacco in a sustainable and economically viable manner. These recombinant GFs have a cellulose-binding domain, which can be used to anchor the GFs to a cellulose-containing scaffold. Using anchored GFs will significantly lower (up to 99%) the amount required for efficient cell growth, due to their close proximity to the cells. In addition, anchoring specific GFs at designated areas in the scaffold will allow spatial differentiation of cells into different tissues (fat, muscle, etc.) and creation of whole cuts.

Through this work, new methods to produce and structure complex cultivated meat products will be devised. Ultimately, it could reduce costs of cultivated meat production and increase production capacity of whole cuts.

Principal researchers

Dr. Oded Shoseyov

Professor, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Dr. Shoseyov has expertise in plant molecular biology, protein engineering, and nanobiotechnology. He has experience developing biomimetic products for affordable and sustainable innovation.

Dr. Sharon Schlesinger

Assistant Professor, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Dr. Schlesinger has expertise working with embryonic stem cells and studies epigenetic reprogramming following fertilization.

Dr. Yonatan Eran

CRDO, BioBetter, Israel

Dr. Eran has 10 years of experience managing R&D teams and leading preclinical projects, including constructing expression vectors, protein analytics, and developing methods for measuring protein biological activity.