Meat Factory

A report in the Cell Press journal Trends in Biotechnology states that scientists from Wageningen University, Netherlands have produced meat from stem cell technology that could lead to every town and village having its very own small-scale meat factory.

Author of the report Cor van der Weele points out that the scientific process used to re-grow faulty organs from stem cells can also be used to produce meat which is eco-friendly. The possibility of creating meat from stem cells is already proven by Mark Post, a tissue engineering professor who created the first lab-grown hamburger in 2013.

Coupled with environmental concerns and the cruelty an animal goes through in the abattoir, people in many parts of the world have started adopting the vegan culture. This technology could be used for manufacturing meat from a vial of cells collected from a cell bank. The challenge however is maintaining a continuous stem cell line. The technology at present is very expensive but one can hope that cultured meat will get cheaper in the near future.