Post by Wageningen Food & Biobased Research

🥩🔬 Wageningen chairholder María Suárez Diez aims to improve the production process of cultivated meat. We congratulate her team on receiving an NWO grant (Open Competition ENW-M) to support this research! As global demand for meat continues to rise, alternatives to conventional livestock farming are urgently needed. Cultivated meat, produced from animal stem cells in the lab, provide a promising option. However, large-scale production still faces significant challenges. For instance, the cultivation process remains inefficient, making the process expensive. 📈 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗺𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘁𝗵 At the WUR Laboratory of Systems and Synthetic Biology, Maria will investigate exactly how pig cells grow and develop during cultivated meat production. Together with colleagues, she will use computational biology and advanced computer models to map the processes that influence cell growth. By gaining a better understanding of where growth processes slow down or become inefficient, the researchers hope to find ways to stimulate growth. In doing so, they join efforts with Bioprocess Engineering Chair, Wageningen University that is also conducting research in cultivated meat. Insights from this fundamental research could help make cultivated meat production more efficient and cost-effective in the future.