Building Vessels
3D vascularized tissues for thick cuts of meat
Abi Glencross
King's College London, United Kingdom
Maastricht University, Netherlands
bioreactor
scaffold
COMPLETED
Overview
Who: Abigail Glencross, Ph.D. student in cellular agriculture
When: 2015 – 2017
Institutes: King's College London, United Kingdom; Maastricht University, Netherlands
Supervisors: Lucy Di-Silvio, professor of tissue engineering at King's College London; Mark Post, professor of vascular physiology at Maastricht University
Summary
Abi is designing and testing a perfusion system that will successfully deliver nutrients through muscle tissue, like blood vessels do in your body. Her system will use hollow tubes throughout a 3D muscle tissue, in which she will study the right conditions for her “artificial vessels” to feed the tissue.
Why This Matters
It is not currently possible to create cultured meat any thicker than a strand of thread. Incorporating vessels into cultured meat will be a breakthrough which allows for thick cuts of meat, like steaks – massively expanding the potential of cultured meat.
Special thanks to MaxMind for their generous support of Abi’s research. We rely on philanthropic partners to help projects like this one get off the ground. To learn more about how you can support New Harvest’s research program, please email stephanie.b@new-harvest.org.
Outcomes
In 2017, Abi discontinued her project and left academia to explore other methods of sustainable agriculture. She has gone on to co-found the Sustainable Food Story and serve as head of grains at Duchess Farms, a regenerative farm focused on heritage and alternative grains.
Abi was our very first New Harvest fellow. Her experience—and struggles—helped us change our fellowship program for the better. You can read about why Abi discontinued her project, and the changes we made to the program in response, here.
