Manufactured meat

I’ve been reading a lot of science magazines lately and I came across two different articles about two related cutting edge technologies.

One story was about feeding the world’s billions and the other was from the world of medicine.  Two separate groups of researchers are trying to achieve the same thing.  They are trying to grow meat in a laboratory.

First, in the world of food science and technology, scientists are looking for ways to produce enough food to feed a growing number of hungry humans. They are trying to grow meat protein (beef, pork and chicken) in a petri dish in a food lab. 

They harvest living stem cells from farm animals, put them in a growth serum and then coax them into reproducing themselves. Before you know it, a prime rib roast or a pork chop magically appears in the dish

Well, maybe I’m exaggerating a little but the meat lab hopes to have a product on grocery shelves in years rather than decades. Even so, don’t expect steaks, chops and chicken wings. The first available products will be things like sausage, hamburger and chicken nuggets.

The technical problems have largely been solved but growing cultured meat is expensive. Using currently available technology, a pound of meat could cost as much as $50,000 dollars to produce. That’s a far cry from the $1.99 per pound of lean ground beef we’re used to.

Cost is just one problem. There is also something called the ick factor or the yuck response with lab meat. 

Consumers are skeptical of burgers grown in a petri dish the same way they are fearful of genetically engineered or irradiated food. It may be some time before butcher shops are replaced with bioreactors.

However, this technology has huge implications for feeding the world’s hungry. Theoretically, 10 single cells could grow into 50,000 metric tons of meat after just two months in the lab. This process could be used to literally feed the entire planet, at least the meat eaters. For the vegetarians, plant food already grows quite well right in the ground.

Supporters say growing lab meat is an environmentally sound practice using up to 60 per cent less energy and 98 per cent less agricultural land. It also produces 80 per cent fewer greenhouse gas emissions.

We love our meat but apparently those cow farts are killing us.

This all leads to another interesting and somewhat disturbing question. If researchers can grow beef, pork and chicken in a petri dish, can they also grow human flesh? The answer is yes. Although this experiment is being led by medical doctors and scientists and not by grocery stores owners.

A second group of researchers is working on something much less appetizing but just as fascinating.  They are working in the field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Their ultimate goal is to coax the human body into growing back lost limbs.

Losing a limb is no big deal if you happen to be a crustacean or a lizard but for the rest of us it can be a serious matter. Human arms and legs don’t grow back.

Or do they?

Apparently the same basic mechanism that enables a starfish to grow back a lost leg is present in humans but for some reason it has become inactive. The challenge is to re-activate this amazing process.

The implications in the field of medicine are enormous.

The human body’s ability to heal and regenerate itself can be seen when a wound heals or a fingernail grows back and some internal organs like the liver can still regenerate if just 25 per cent of the organ remains. 

It sounds like science fiction but human tissue is routinely grown in medical labs. The large number of amputees returning from Iraq and Afghanistan has triggered renewed interest and increased funding. If this biology can be harnessed and extended, arms and legs might be back on the medical menu.

This scenario may have a yuck factor of its own. I’m trying to imagine a future scenario where, heaven forbid, I lose a leg. How strange it would be to watch as a new baby leg emerges from my stump and slowly grows into a full-sized limb. It would be wonderful but I think it might creep me out in the process.

And when my leg finally grew back I would celebrate by walking down to my local meat bioreactor to pick up an in-vitro t-bone steak, freshly lifted from a sterile petri dish.

Isn’t science wonderful?