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A Compilation of Our First 45 Publications, Part 6: Scaffolds

Part VI is about scaffolds, the materials that cells (especially muscle cells) like to attach on to grow.

Published April 2, 2023 | Updated April 11, 2023 | Breanna Duffy

Did you know that New Harvest has supported 45 peer-reviewed scientific publications in cellular agriculture?

As you know, building the scientific foundations of the field is a key part of our role as cellular agriculture ecosystem builders. That means funding fundamental, open research: the work that drives innovation, sparks follow-on government funding and investment, informs policymakers, and inspires the private sector.

Part VI is about scaffolds, the materials that cells (especially muscle cells) like to attach on to grow.

These papers are *quite* technical but hopefully the one-liners give a sense of what they’re about and why they are important!

PART VI: SCAFFOLDS (in chronological order)

  1. A review of some great scaffold options and thoughts on their ability to scale up.
  2. Turns out you can improve tissue growth just by growing cells on a curved surface!
  3. Spinach leaves are an interesting scaffold and template for growing meat.
  4. How will we grow meat with the vascular system for thick pieces of steak? This review shares the state of the art.
  5. Wrap your head around this: we could grow meat on grass!
  6. Designing a better platform for 3D printing scaffolds using light.
  7. This review looks at testing various food grade, plant based scaffolds.
  8. Not gluten-free: Low-cost and food grade wheat-based scaffolds*
  9. You can make 3D printed scaffolds from soy!*
  10. Plants can be used to make little beads for cells to grow on.
  11. Films can be used to compare a variety of materials for use as scaffolds*
  12. A cultured meat patty was made with edible scaffold beads.
  13. You can make scaffolds from algae.
  14. Cross-linking agents used to form scaffolds for 3D printed tissues can interfere with tissue growth. This paper investigates an alternative.
  1. Campuzano, S., & Pelling, A. E. (2019). Scaffolds for 3D Cell Culture and Cellular Agriculture Applications Derived From Non-animal Sources. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, 3, 38.
  2. Connon, C. J., & Gouveia, R. M. (2021). Milliscale Substrate Curvature Promotes Myoblast Self-Organization and Differentiation. Advanced Biology, 5(4), 2000280.
  3. Jones, J. D., Rebello, A. S., & Gaudette, G. R. (2021). Decellularized spinach: An edible scaffold for laboratory-grown meat. Food Bioscience, 41, 100986.
  4. Vajda, J. Milojević, M. Maver, U. Vihar, B. (2021). Microvascular Tissue Engineering—A Review. Biomedicines, 9, 589.
  5. Allan, S. J., Ellis, M. J., & De Bank, P. A. (2021). Decellularized grass as a sustainable scaffold for skeletal muscle tissue engineering. Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part A, 1–12.
  6. Garrett, A., Jaberi, A., Viotto, A., Yang, R., Tamayol, A., Malshe, A., & Sealy, M. P. (2021). Rotational Digital Light Processing for Edible Scaffold Fabrication. In 2021 International Solid Freeform Fabrication Symposium. University of Texas at Austin.
  7. Wollschlaeger, J. O., Maatz, R., Albrecht, F. B., Klatt, A., Heine, S., Blaeser, A., & Kluger, P. J. (2022). Scaffolds for cultured meat on the basis of polysaccharide hydrogels enriched with plant-based proteins. Gels, 8(2), 94.
  8. Xiang, N., Yuen Jr, J. S., Stout, A. J., Rubio, N. R., Chen, Y., & Kaplan, D. L. (2022). 3D porous scaffolds from wheat glutenin for cultured meat applications. Biomaterials, 285, 121543.
  9. Sealy, M. P., Avegnon, K. L. M., Garrett, A., Delbreilh, L., Bapat, S., & Malshe, A. P. (2022). Understanding biomanufacturing of soy-based scaffolds for cell-cultured meat by vat polymerization. CIRP Annals.
  10. Thyden, R., Perreault, L. R., Jones, J. D., Notman, H., Varieur, B. M., Patmanidis, A. A., … & Gaudette, G. R. (2022). An Edible, Decellularized Plant Derived Cell Carrier for Lab Grown Meat. Applied Sciences, 12(10), 5155.
  11. Xiang, N., Yao, Y., Yuen Jr, J. S., Stout, A. J., Fennelly, C., Sylvia, R., … & Kaplan, D. L. (2022). Edible films for cultivated meat production. Biomaterials, 287, 121659.
  12. Norris, S. C., Kawecki, N. S., Davis, A. R., Chen, K. K., & Rowat, A. C. (2022). Emulsion-templated microparticles with tunable stiffness and topology: Applications as edible microcarriers for cultured meat. Biomaterials, 121669.
  13. Tahir, I., & Floreani, R. (2022). Dual-Crosslinked Alginate-Based Hydrogels with Tunable Mechanical Properties for Cultured Meat. Foods, 11(18).
  14. Vajda, J., Vihar, B., Ćurić, L. Č., Maver, U., Vesenjak, M., Dubrovski, P. D., & Milojević, M. (2023). Sr2+ vs. Ca2+ as post-processing ionic crosslinkers: Implications for 3D bioprinting of polysaccharide hydrogels in tissue engineering. Journal of Materials Research and Technology.
My goodness that’s a lot of scaffold research. There are just so many options when it comes to surfaces for growing muscle cells for meat.

A star (*) beside the links above indicates that the paper is not open access, but most will be open access so that anyone – inside or outside of academia – can read it. If you’d like to help us make these papers openly available for all, please donate to our Open Access Fund.


About the Authors
Breanna Duffy headshot
Breanna Duffy is New Harvest's Director of Responsible Research & Innovation - US