Fish Growth Factors
Developing seafood-specific growth media
Cameron Semper
University of Calgary, Canada
media
Overview
Who: Cameron Semper, Postdoctoral scholar
When: 2019 – Present
Institutes: University of Calgary, Canada
Supervisors: Alexei Savchenko, associate professor of immunology and infectious diseases at the University of Calgary
Summary
Cameron is developing a growth medium optimized for fish cells. Despite the fact that fish cells are uniquely well-suited to cell culture, they continue to be grown in the only growth media available: bovine. To address this mismatch, Cameron is identifying species-specific sequences for growth factors to create a fish serum-free culture media.
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- BioXP, an in-house gene synthesizer used for the project.
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- DNA gel of synthetic genes coding for fish growth factors. These were synthesized de novo using the BioXP device.
Why This Matters
Seafood remains a neglected area of research within cellular agriculture, but early work shows that fish and bovine growth factors have important differences. Cameron is helping advance cultured seafood by creating a recipe to culture fish filet.
Special thanks to Tipping Point Private Foundation for their generous support of Cameron’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.
To find out more about this project, listen to our podcast where we talk to Cameron about using microbes to produce fish growth factors, fungal secondary metabolism, and structural biology.
Listen NowMore from Cameron Semper
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Publications
A simple and robust serum-free media for the proliferation of muscle cells
Food Research International, 2023
