Emulsion-templated microparticles with tunable stiffness and topology: Applications as edible microcarriers for cultured meat

Overview

Who: Sam C.P. Norris, N. Stephanie Kawecki, Ashton R. Davis, Kathleen K. Chen, Amy C. Rowat

Published: July 16, 2022

Where: Biomaterials

Key Takeaway: Gelatin microcarriers are a suitable scaffold for producing cultured meat at-scale.

Research Topics: scaffold

Summary

Sam Norris et al. explore edible gelatin microcarriers as scaffolds for cultured meat production in suspension culture. Spherical microcarriers (sMCs) and grooved microcarriers (gMCs) are synthesized with varied material properties and used to support both mouse and bovine myoblast growth. Norris et al. find both the sMCs and gMCs are able to successfully support cell expansion. They also find that, despite hypothesizing that the grooves on the gMCs may lend to more successful differentiation into myotubes, both sMCs and gMCs are about equivalent in terms of supporting differentiation. They do predict, however, that the grooves of the gMCs may be altered in such a way that they have a significant impact on differentiation. Finally, Norris et al. culture bovine satellite muscle cells on sMCs and process it into cultured meat to show proof-of-concept use of these scaffolds in cultured meat production. They find that the cultured patty is able to retain its shape, and they suggest that the projected scale for using microcarriers in cultured meat production may be feasibly achieved with further optimization.

Written by Morgan Ziegelski

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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.

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