Research Projects

Modular Bioreactor Prototype

Scaling cultured meat production

Han Zhang, Yi-Fan Chen, and Kyle Manke
University of British Columbia, Canada

bioreactor

scaffold

COMPLETED

Overview

Who: Han Zhang, Yi-Fan Chen, and Kyle Manke, bachelor’s students in mechanical and materials engineering

When: 2017 – 2018

Institutes: University of British Columbia, Canada

Supervisors: Jess Krieger, New Harvest Research Fellow at Kent State University; Kate Krueger, research director at New Harvest

Summary

Han and his team aim to design and build a scalable and modular bioreactor prototype for cultured meat production. Their design is particularly scalable due to the way it simultaneously pumps media to multiple tissues — easily allowing for an increase or decrease in the total number of tissues growing at the same time.

: The UBC modular bioreactor seed grantee team members Han, Yifan, and Kyle

: The nearly completed bioreactor cabinet, with trays to hold the culture chips and an outer case to keep the inner environment perfect for cell growth

: Freshly cut trays to house the bioreactor’s cell culture chips, serum reservoirs, and drains inside the bioreactor

: One of the most novel pieces to the design of the bioreactor is this modular pumphead, which is able to send media to multiple tissues simultaneously

Why This Matters

In order for cultured meat to one day be available on shelves, a method of mass production has to be established. The bioreactor developed in this project could create the environment cells need to grow into meat, with the ability to scale production – knocking down one of the biggest hurdles to getting cultured meat products onto shelves.

Outcomes

Han and his team produced a prototype that could theoretically support the growth of up to 16 pieces of meat at once! In 2018, New Harvest provided a grant to IRNAS, a Slovenian organization specializing in rapid open-source hardware development, to continue development of this prototype. To learn more about the bioreactor and ongoing work see our blog post.