Significant advances in the Israeli food technology world
: Technion researchers have succeeded in producing edible muscle fibers based on plant origin, while reducing the use of animal materials.
Beyond the scientific-engineering achievement, it is possible that this technology will enable in the future rapid production of cultured meat on a large scale for mass production.
Cultivated meat development is a significant challenge today due to the growing need for meat products as a result of population expansion, the environmental damage caused by cattle breeding and the desire to prevent animal cruelty.
To meet the challenge, technologies are required that enable the production of pieces of meat as similar as possible to those produced from animals in terms of taste, smell, texture and safety.
Beyond that, in order to turn such meat into a popular food, rapid production processes are required, on a large scale and at a price close to that of animal meat.
In an article published in the journal Biomaterials, Prof. Shulamit Levenberg and doctoral student Iris Janowitz from the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering at the Technion described the research process, in which Dr. Yedidya Zaguri, Dr. Idan Radansky and Dr. Neta Lavon also participated.
Prof. Shulamit Levenberg is a world-renowned expert in tissue engineering, and her research on this topic has led to the establishment of the cultured meat company Alef Farms, a research partner.
Last year, the company presented the first piece of cultured entrecote in history, produced at the Levenberg Laboratory at the Technion.
Ability to attach and deploy satellite cells (marked in red) on scaffolds printed in 3D, Photo: Nitzan Zohar, Technion Spokeswoman
OUT
ANIMALS
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ALGAE AND SOY
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The article presented the major challenges in the field of cultured meat, which were also at the center of the research that dealt with the process of creating muscle fibers for the production of thick cuts and the application of alternative materials as "scaffolding" for this purpose.
Maintaining cell life deep in the cultured tissue is not a simple task, and most of the materials used as tissue scaffolds are now extracted from animals.
These problems, according to the researchers, can be solved by 3D printing, in biological ink, of plant-derived scaffolding.
Such ink contains the cells from which the whole tissue will grow - satellite cells derived from a biopsy taken from a visitor - and consists of a combination of algae-derived material along with plant-isolated proteins, soy or peas.
Next, the biological ink is injected in a printing process that creates protein-enriched scaffolds, and as a result a very high cell life of the cells was observed in the study, which also matured to form muscle fibers during tissue growth.
Prof. Shulamit Levenberg (right) and doctoral student Iris Janowitz, Photo: Nitzan Zohar, Technion Spokeswoman
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