Future farmer: Dhruv Raina, Cell Biologist

In this series we are interviewing our future farmers at Mosa Meat and what inspires them as pioneers of cellular agriculture. Today we spoke with Dhruv Raina, Senior Scientist in the Stemness and Isolation Team at Mosa Meat.

Where did you grow up, Dhruv, and what got you interested in biology?

I grew up in Bangalore, a major city in India with a population of over 13 million people. I didn’t grow up around nature. Yet despite being surrounded by concrete, I’ve always really loved biology. 

I was the student that sat at the back of the class and stared out of the window. I remember I wanted to invent a car that, instead of exhaust, would emit perfume. I thought it would be better for the environment, maybe get rid of the methane!

When you look at structures like buildings, they’re very purpose-built. What I love about biology is it’s an inversion of this. You can look at any scale of biology— from a large colony of ants, to a single ant, to the biochemical environment inside an ant — and the ‘whys’ are really well hidden. It’s this infinite fractal of inscrutable purpose, you can look as deeply as you want and you’ll never really understand the why.

How did you pursue your passion for science after school?

I studied Chemistry, Genetics and Biotechnology at Bangalore University and did my Masters in Regenerative Medicine at Manipal Institute of Regenerative Medicine [also in Bangalore]. During my Masters, we studied stem cells in various niches and different kinds of signaling. Cells need to speak to each other to reach some kind of balance among the different types that exist in an organism.

I then pursued my PhD and studied cell signaling in mouse embryonic stem cells at the Max Planck of Molecular Physiology in Dortmund, Germany. 

I’ve always been curious how physical aspects of environments influence cellular behavior, as well. That’s what brought me here to Mosa Meat. What we’re doing here in many ways is trying to develop some robustness in guiding the cells to differentiate into specific fates that we need them to take. 

Tell us more about your work at Mosa Meat.

To cultivate beef, we need to fully understand all the relevant signaling and environmental interactions that will evoke the same differentiation response in our cells as inside the animal.

My main focus is trying to understand biochemical signals and physical forces that cells experience inside our large scale culture systems [our bioreactors]. It’s crucial to get the environmental cues completely right to get robustness in differentiation. 

For example, there are physical forces like cells bumping against the walls of the bioreactors or experiencing rapidly shifting fluid currents. There’s also the biochemical signaling aspect, for example how the cells respond to what we feed them. The interaction between the physical environment and biochemical signaling is what will allow us to cultivate the cells at scale by creating the right environmental cues. 

Fat precursor cells grown on a microcarrier. In cyan is the nucleus, and red marks the cell body (actin). 

And how interdisciplinary is the work that our future farmers do at Mosa Meat?

It’s a biological and engineering challenge. On the biology side of things, we need to demonstrate that we’ve understood the system well enough that you can reduce it and consistently get the same result.

It’s an engineering problem because once we simplify the biology and the growth of these cells, we need to build instruments that are so easy to operate that we can push a button and the equipment does most of the work for you.

What motivates you to work here?

We all seem to be driven by this goal and passion for sustainability. Having that overarching belief in this vision really unites us despite the fact that we all have different expertises and speak different technical languages. It also makes it possible for people working on diverse problems to want to collaborate actively together. This means sometimes we can be really fast. 

So much of this has only been possible not just because Mosa Meat has hired smart people who have different technical expertises, but because people are actively trying to collaborate and speak each other’s languages. This is special —we’re a young organization, with a concentration of expertise, where people have flexibility to do what they want. Scientifically you have freedom, and everyone’s excited and interested. 

Crave change? Sign up to our newsletter for the latest Mosa Meat updates straight to your inbox.