Hanni Rützler tastes world’s first cultured hamburger. By World Economic Forum - File:The Meat
Revolution Mark Post.webm (8:06), CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?cu-
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cells. Basement membrane-like material
also appeared adjacent to the cells. Analysis
of the microfibrils showed that they have
an amino acid composition like that of the
microfibrillar protein of the intact elastic
fibre. These investigations coupled with the
radioautographic observations of the ability
of aortic smooth muscle to synthesize and
secrete extracellular proteins demonstrate
that this cell is a connective tissue synthetic
cell.” For stem cells from animals, in vitro
cultivation has been possible since the 1990s.
NASA has been conducting experiments since
2001, producing in vitro meat from turkey
cells. The first edible sample was produced by
the NSR/Touro Applied Bioscience Research
Consortium in 2002: goldfish cells grown to
resemble fish fillets.
In 1998 Jon F. Vein of the United States filed
for, and ultimately secured, a patent to
produce tissue engineered meat for human
consumption, wherein muscle and fat cells
would be grown in an integrated fashion to create
food products such as beef, poultry and fish.
In 2001, dermatologist Wiete Westerhof from
the University of Amsterdam, medical doctor
Willem van Eelen, and businessman Willem
van Kooten announced that they had filed for
a worldwide patent on a process to produce in
vitro meat. In the process, a matrix of collagen
is seeded with muscle cells, which are then
bathed in a nutritious solution and induced to
divide.
AgriKultuur |AgriCulture
In 2003, Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr of the
Tissue Culture and Art Project and Harvard
Medical School exhibited in Nantes a “steak” a
few centimetres wide, grown from frog stem
cells, which was cooked and eaten.
The first peer-reviewed journal article
published about laboratory-grown meat
appeared in a 2005 issue of Tissue
Engineering.
In 2008, PETA offered a $1 million prize to the
first company to bring lab-grown chicken meat
to consumers by 2012. The Dutch government
has put US$4 million into experiments
regarding in vitro meat. The In Vitro Meat
Consortium, a group formed by international
researchers interested in the technology,
held the first international conference on the
production of in vitro meat, hosted by the
Food Research Institute of Norway in April
2008, to discuss commercial possibilities. Time
magazine declared in vitro meat production
to be one of the 50 breakthrough ideas of
2009. In November 2009, scientists from the
Netherlands announced they had managed
to grow meat in the laboratory using the cells
from a live pig.
As of 2012, 30 laboratories from around the
world have announced they’re working on in
vitro meat research.
First public trial
On August 5, 2013, the world’s first lab-
grown burger was cooked and eaten at a
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