Accelerating the cultured meat revolution

摘要

"It will be made in a similar way to brewing beer," says Lavanya Anandan. She is not talking about a new kind of drink, however, but describing a new industry aiming to grow meat in the lab. This new food is known as clean meat, cultured meat or cultivated meat. Demand for meat has never been higher, but the way we produce it today is unsustainable and, for some, ethically dubious. So scientists around the world are learning to grow meat and seafood in their labs without the need for farms or livestock. They have had considerable success -the world's first lab-grown beef burger was cooked and tasted in London in 2013, albeit at a price of around $250,000 and costs have dropped by orders of magnitude since. The challenge now is to turn these lab-based successes into food that can be sold on supermarket shelves at reasonable prices. That's how Anandan fits in. Leading a new Innovation Field on this topic and based in Silicon Valley, Anandan works for Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, a leading science and technology company in Healthcare, Life Science and Performance Materials with a 350-year record of innovation. The company's strategy and transformation team is working on new products and technologies for the future. One of their goals is to provide the technology platforms and infrastructure that will enable the cultured meat revolution.