CHARLESTON, South Carolina (Reuters) – In a small laboratory on an upper floor of the basic science building at the Medical University of South Carolina, Vladimir Mironov, M.D., Ph.D., has been working for a decade to grow meat.
A developmental biologist and tissue engineer, Dr. Mironov, 56, is one of only a few scientists worldwide involved in bioengineering “cultured” meat.
It’s a product he believes could help solve future global food crises resulting from shrinking amounts of land available for growing meat the old-fashioned way … on the hoof.
Growth of “in-vitro” or cultured meat is also under way in the Netherlands, Mironov told Reuters in an interview, but in the United States, it is science in search of funding and demand.
The new National Institute of Food and Agriculture, part of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, won’t fund it, the National Institutes of Health won’t fund it, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration funded it only briefly, Mironov said.
“It’s classic disruptive technology,” Mironov said. “Bringing any new technology on the market, average, costs $1 billion. We don’t even have $1 million.”
Director of the Advanced Tissue Biofabrication Center in the Department of Regenerative Medicine and Cell Biology at the medical university, Mironov now primarily conducts research on tissue engineering, or growing, of human organs.
“There’s a yuck factor when people find out meat is grown in a lab. They don’t like to associate technology with food,” said Nicholas Genovese, 32, a visiting scholar in cancer cell biology working under a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals three-year grant to run Dr. Mironov’s meat-growing lab.
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Sin and Punishment springs to mind. Wonder if the meat will blow up.
Don’t understand why you wouldn’t fund that, when they found how to produce meat, it’s a small step to produce new working human organs, isn’t it?
Producing protein in the labrotory is cruelty free, disease free, and waste free, personally i dont eat meat and am healthier than the average 62 year old.
However if meat ever became cruelty free, I may indulge.
I don’t understand how people can be squeamish about the idea of eating this manufactured meat when they eat fast food burgers which are made of mechanically recovered meat from every part of the animal (lips and asses as my friend is known to utter).
If someone can find a way to produce a large slab of meat that isn’t full of gristle and fat and is scientifically proven to be as nutritious and healthy as farmed meat then I’m all for it.
Hhhhmmmm. I really wonder if this is actually a real problem for people. I’m thinking about “Tube Steaks” …
This research is much needed, though I’m sure there will be quite a few stumbles along the way. The cruelty involved in modern meat production is staggering – but vegan, or even vegetarian lifestyles can be very hard to maintain and, depending on whether or not you cook and where you live, ridiculously expensive. This is a step towards removing cruelty from meat without expecting people to change their entire life.
I, for one, can’t wait to try it. For me, this “yuck” factor is nothing compared to the knowledge that America’s Food and Drug Administration actually has an ALLOWABLE LEVEL OF ANIMAL EXCREMENT in meat!!!
I’m sure its meat growing on my shower walls…oooooo nope…Limescale. Thanks Internet search engine. Where would I be without you.
Dont see the problem , may promote more cruelty free methods of farming etc etc…although will we suddenly be overun with livestock?
I always knew thats how the world would end. Eaten by livestock.
You’ve got to keep a handle on those things because you can see it in their eyes. Especially cows. Revenge. They are not saying “Mooo”…They are saying “Youuuu”
I think’s a cool idea!
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It’s people!