Researchers say factory-grown meat could be the fare in supermarkets and restaurants of the future. While cattle-free quarter-pounders or chicken-free nug-gets may sound like science fiction, Jason Matheny, lead author of a paper on in vitro meat production in a June 2006 issue of the scientific journal Tissue Engineering, says it's closer than you think. In fact, the University of Maryland graduate student says researchers in the Netherlands and the U.S. expect to perfect a scalable process to produce cost-effective, in vitro (lab-grown), processed meats within five years. Matheny says the technology isn't new. Medical researchers have long been able to grow muscle tissue in the lab. Factory-grown meat just adapts this technology to industrial-scale meat production. Matheny says its a logical extension of technology-driven agriculture.
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