production of animal proteins by cell systems - New Harvest

Cultured meat: a short history
The idea of culturing animal parts in vitro for human consumption is not new. In fact,
already in the 1920s it was Winston Churchill who predicted that within 50 years from
then, animal parts would be ‘cultured separately under a suitable medium’ (Churchill,
essay ‘Fifty Years Hence’ later published in ‘Thoughts and adventures’, 1932) 1 . In 2002 a
study was published in which the possibilities of culturing animal muscle protein for longterm
space flights or habituation of space stations were explored. For this, muscle tissue
from the common goldfish (Carassius auratus) ranging
from 3-10 cm in length was cultured in Petri dishes. The
results from the experiments were rather promising and a
limited increase in cell mass was observed when the
muscle tissue was cultured with crude cell extracts. In
addition, the cultured explants were washed, dipped in
olive oil with spices, covered in breadcrumbs and fried. A
test-panel judged these processed explants and, although
actual tasting was not performed according to Food and
Drug Administration rules, agreed that the product was
acceptable as food 2 . This promising study was not
continued because of a lack of further funding.
In the Netherlands, it was Willem van Eelen in the early
1950s who independently had the idea of using tissue
culture for the generation of meat products. Since at that
time the concept of stem cells and the in vitro culture of
cells still had to emerge, it took until 1999 before van
Eelen’s theoretical idea was patented. Van Eelen, as part of
the company VitroMeat BV, sought collaboration with
academic partners, and in 2004 a consortium consisting of the Faculty of Biomedical
Technology (Technical University Eindhoven), the Swammerdam Institute of Life Sciences
(University of Amsterdam) and the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine (Utrecht University)
together with an industrial partner, the meat concern Meester Stegeman (at that time
part of Sara Lee Foods Europe) was founded. This consortium was awarded a
SenterNovem research grant for 4 years to study the proof of principle of culturing
skeletal muscle cells from farm animal stem cells.
7