Cultivating beef without FBS
Mosa Meat was founded in 2016 with the mission to fundamentally reshape the global food system, and a commitment to reduce our dependence on animals in the process of making delicious beef. In 2019, we shared a significant milestone with the world: we had successfully removed FBS and other animal components from our process.
Fetal bovine serum (FBS) has been used as a supplement for cell feed (also known as cell culture media) due to its richness in nutrients and growth factors. However, to reduce the number of cows used in the food system, it is not sustainable, ethical or scalable to use FBS in the process. Therefore, our founders committed to removing FBS from our process early on. Our investors strongly support this decision, and the absence of FBS was part of our latest funding round agreements as a hard requirement, signed by all participating investors.
While we announced in 2019 that we had removed FBS from our cell feed, there has been continued debate around this topic.
Today, we are excited to share that we have published a peer-reviewed article in Nature Food which reveals how we achieve muscle differentiation without the use of FBS and without genetically modifying the cells in any way. The paper includes descriptions of processes and differentiation medium ingredients that have worked well for us. Muscle cells differentiating into fibers are responsible for the structure and chew of meat, and within muscle fibers the proteins and rich colour of meat are produced. To learn more about the importance of muscle differentiation when cultivating meat, read our recent blogpost on how we make real meat.
“Although the decision to publish this information could be seen as competitively sensitive, we highly value openness and transparency for the advancement of the entire cellular agriculture field,’’ shared Mosa Meat CEO Maarten Bosch today. “We’re also dedicated to creating a healthy business and protecting our intellectual property. Having made significant progress since submitting this paper over a year ago, we are convinced we are striking the right balance with this publication.’’
In the study we describe changes that occur to stem cells when they turn into muscle through a process known as serum-starvation (a process of abruptly reducing FBS in the cell feed).
Using a method called RNA sequencing, we can study the changes in gene expression that the cells undergo when they differentiate into muscle.
First author and PhD candidate at Mosa Meat Tobias Messmer expands, “We were particularly interested in proteins on the surface of cells that increase during differentiation. By specifically activating these proteins (known as ‘receptors’), we are now able to recreate the same transition in the absence of any FBS.’’
“This is really a milestone for us and for the cultivated meat field, because there’s no method out there that describes the differentiation of primary satellite cells if you don’t want to use FBS or genetically modify your cells,” shared Mosa Meat scientist and corresponding author on the publication, Dr. Joshua Flack.
We have filed a patent for the cell feed formulation, meaning it is publicly available but protected for commercial use for a limited amount of years.
The technical challenges that the cellular agriculture industry faces can only be overcome by working together. So, we are pleased to share our knowledge today. We look forward to sharing more of our progress in the future, as well as seeing continued progress across our new industry in the near future.
We are very proud of our scientists whose hard work and dedication have led to these outstanding results. Interested in joining our team? Visit our Careers page to view open positions.
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