Research Projects

Growth Factors Within Reach

Attaching growth factors to cultured meat scaffolds

Ashton Davis
University of California, Los Angeles, United States

media

scaffold

Overview

Who: Ashton Davis, bachelor’s student in biochemistry

When: 2021 – Present

Institutes: University of California, Los Angeles, United States

Supervisors: Amy Rowat, Associate Professor at University of California, Los Angeles

Summary

Ashton is attaching growth factors (the biological instructions to cells) to the surface of cultured meat scaffolds. By immobilizing growth factors near the cells, they’ll be exactly where they’re needed! Ashton’s work will establish how to attach the growth factors and study how much is needed when used this way. Ashton’s system could make feeding cells much more efficient.

: Ashton’s gelatin hydrogels with different concentrations of heparin for attaching growth factors.

: Cells will grow on Ashton’s new material! (Grey: calcein AM) 🙌

Why This Matters

Growth factors are the most expensive ingredient in culture media. When growth factors are floating freely in the media, you need a lot of it to ensure enough will happen to float past the cells. By attaching them to the scaffold instead, fewer growth factors would be needed – decreasing the cost of media.