Recycling Waste into Media
Repurposing plant waste into cell culture media
Ted O'Neill
University of California, Davis, United States
media
Overview
Who: Ted O’Neill, Ph.D. student in food science and technology
When: 2019 – Present
Institutes: University of California, Davis, United States
Supervisors: David Block, professor of chemical engineering at the University of California, Davis; Keith Baar, professor of functional molecular biology at University of California, Davis; Hildegarde Heymann, professor of enology at University of California, Davis
Summary
Ted is creating a serum-free culture media by repurposing agricultural waste products. To do this, he will recreate the basic nutritional requirements cells need using inexpensive agricultural crop byproducts, such as molasses, yeast extract, and corn steep liquor. In addition, Ted will look for similarities between known plant proteins and the expensive growth factors needed in media supplements.
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- Fluorescent-stained C2C12 cell micrograph obtained using the BioTek Cytation1 Ted was demoing in his lab. He was testing the instrument’s ability to count cell samples at a high throughput.
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- Counting mask algorithm applied to the same image. The BioTek software recognized the discrete blue-stained nuclei as individual cells, and seemed to be very accurate.
Why This Matters
Ted’s approach to media development will reduce the cost of cultured meat production by replacing expensive components with cheaper sources. In addition, it will increase the net sustainability of cultured meat production by repurposing waste from other supply chains.
More from Ted O'Neill
Publications
Spent Media Analysis Suggests Cultivated Meat Media Will Require Species and Cell Type Optimization
npj Science of Food, 2022
