Mark Post

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“The Dream Of An Artificial Burger Suddenly Got Interesting”

May 26, 2015 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

Cultured meat isn’t happening today or tomorrow–even those with a vested interest don’t believe it will be commercially viable for at least two decades–but the cost of an in vitro burger has already fallen precipitously from its 2013 price of $325K (condiments included). When taste and price become reasonable, it will be a real market, and one that will destabilize the slaughterhouse and be far less damaging to the environment than the beef industry. 

From Ariel Schwartz at Fact Company:

The artificial burger that you—or your science-fiction-loving friends—have been waiting for is real. And now it’s cheap, too.

It wasn’t long ago that test-tube hamburgers—meat made from small pieces of lab-grown animal muscle tissue—were just a glimmer in some mad scientist’s eye. Then, in 2013, the dream of an artificial burger suddenly got interesting. That’s when Mark Post, a researcher at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, announced that he had created a burger made from real meat grown in a lab (20,000 strips of muscle tissue, to be exact) for the unreasonable price of $325,000. Now that price has dropped to just over $11 for a burger ($80 per kilogram of meat), according to a recent ABC News interview with Post.•

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“The Production Of Meat On Planet Earth Is Killing Us”

September 17, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

I’m vegetarian and would pass on eating even lab-grown meat, but I do hope we perfect the process soon. Certainly for the sake of animals and for our good as well, since a large percentage of the environmental damage we cause comes from meat production, and more and more corners of the globalized world are refusing to go without meat and cursing the bread. The opening of Larry Schwartz’s Frankenfood feature at Salon:

“It was just over a year ago that the world’s first laboratory-grown hamburger was introduced to the world. The in-vitro meat (aka test tube meat, cultured meat, cruelty-free meat, and my favorite, ‘shmeat’) took four years to grow from cow stem cells and cost a meaty $332,000. Cultured in-vitro meat—or ‘frankenburger,’ as the press dubbed it—is the brainchild of a Dutch biologist, Mark Post, of the University of Maastricht. The single burger, created from 20,000 strands of muscle tissue grown in petri dishes, got some lukewarm reviews.

‘It wasn’t unpleasant,’ Chicago food writer Josh Schonwald wrote. More enthusiastically, food researcher Hanni Rutzler commented, ‘That’s some intense flavor.’ Because the meat was cultured from muscle with no fat cells, it lacked juiciness, and was reminiscent of an overdone dry turkey burger. Still, the consensus was that it tasted better than expected, had the consistency of real meat, and for a first try, was not discouraging. Post told NBC News, ‘I’m very excited. It took a long time to get this far. I think this is a very good start.’

While anyone who has seen videos of the horrific conditions factory-farmed cows, pigs and chickens endure in their short, tortured lives might agree that in-vitro meat is a good idea, there’s an even more pressing reason to figure out a way to grow meat: the production of meat on planet Earth is killing us. It takes up more than half of our agricultural capacity, and as the economies of China and other developing nations grow, and as their citizens demand more meat on their dinner tables, that capacity will be strained even further.”

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“In A Decade Or So We Could See Commercial Production Of Meat That Has Been Grown In A Lab Rather Than Reared And Slaughtered”

September 3, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

I’m a vegetarian, and I think you know I believe children shouldn’t be admitted to fast-food restaurants any more than they are bars. But I don’t have any ethical objections to lab-grown meat. I wouldn’t eat it because it’s still meat which I think is still unhealthy, but I suppose if it were ultimately made in such way as to be healthy, I would probably have it. Why not? The opening of “The Vegan Carnivore?” Julian Baggini’s new Aeon essay:

“The chef Richard McGeown has faced bigger culinary challenges in his distinguished career than frying a meat patty in a little sunflower oil and butter. But this time the eyes and cameras of hundreds of journalists in the room were fixed on the 5oz (140g) pink disc sizzling in his pan, one that had been five years and €250,000 in the making. This was the world’s first proper portion of cultured meat, a beef burger created by Mark Post, professor of physiology, and his team at Maastricht University in the Netherlands.

Post (which rhymes with ‘lost,’ not ‘ghost’) has been working on in vitro meat (IVM) since 2009. On 5 August this year he presented his cultured beef burger to the world as a ‘proof of concept’. Having shown that the technology works, Post believes that in a decade or so we could see commercial production of meat that has been grown in a lab rather than reared and slaughtered. The comforting illusion that supermarket trays of plastic-wrapped steaks are not pieces of dead animal might become a discomforting reality.

The IVM technique starts with a harmless procedure to remove myosatellite cells — stem cells that can only become muscle cells — from a live cow’s shoulder. They are then placed in a nutrient solution to create muscle tissue, which in turn forms tiny muscle fibres. Post’s burger contained 40 billion such cells, arranged in 20,000 muscle fibres. Add a few breadcrumbs and egg powder as binders, plus some beetroot juice and saffron to give it a redder colour, and you have your burger. I was at the suitably theatrical setting of the Riverside Studios in west London to see the synthetic burger unveiled. The TV presenter Nina Hossain was hired to provide a dose of professionalism and glamour to what was in effect a live TV show, filmed by a substantial crew for instantaneous webcast.

When the lights dimmed, images of gulls flying over gentle sea waves were projected onto two screens by the sides of the stage. Over some sparse, slow, rising guitar chords, Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google and a donor of €700,000 to Post’s research, uttered the portentous words: ‘Sometimes a new technology comes along and it has the capability to transform how we view our world.’ He was right. Never before has a human eaten meat without harming or killing an animal. But in a strange way the slick presentation detracted from the truly historic nature of the moment. A scientific landmark was sold to us in the manner of a glitzy product launch, a piece of corporate puff.

What was most striking to me was how the presentation led, not with science, but with ethics.”

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“A Technician Was Tending To The Delicate Task Of Growing The Tens Of Billions Of Cells Needed To Make The Burger”

May 12, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

In the future, and not too far in it, genetically modified foods and in vitro ones will be our best hope, perhaps our only hope. The opening of a New York Times article by Henry Fountain about a hamburger “born” of beef-muscle tissue grown in a Dutch lab, a project I blogged about nearly a year ago:

“MAASTRICHT, the Netherlands — As a gastronomic delicacy, the five-ounce hamburger that Mark Post has painstakingly created here surely will not turn any heads. But Dr. Post is hoping that it will change some minds.

The hamburger, assembled from tiny bits of beef muscle tissue grown in a laboratory and to be cooked and eaten at an event in London, perhaps in a few weeks, is meant to show the world — including potential sources of research funds — that so-called in-Vitro meat, or cultured meat, is a reality.

‘Let’s make a proof of concept, and change the discussion from ‘this is never going to work’ to, ‘well, we actually showed that it works, but now we need to get funding and work on it,’ Dr. Post said in an interview last fall in his office at Maastricht University.

Down the hall, in a lab with incubators filled with clear plastic containers holding a pinkish liquid, a technician was tending to the delicate task of growing the tens of billions of cells needed to make the burger, starting with a particular type of cell removed from cow necks obtained at a slaughterhouse.”

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“They Grew Strips Of Muscle Tissue Using Stem Cells Taken From Cows”

July 31, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Meat production is troubling: It’s responsible for almost 20% of our carbon footprint, animals are treated unethically, the food is largely unhealthy and demand for it from a growing world population may make it scarcer and more expensive. Will we eventually be forced to take the “live” out of livestock? From “Future Foods,” Denise Winterman’s new BBC article, a segment about lab-grown meat:

“Earlier this year, Dutch scientists successfully produced in-vitro meat, also known as cultured meat. They grew strips of muscle tissue using stem cells taken from cows, which were said to resemble calamari in appearance. They hope to create the world’s first ‘test-tube burger’ by the end of the year.

The first scientific paper on lab-grown meat was funded by NASA, says social scientist Dr Neil Stephens, based at Cardiff University’s ESRC Cesagen research centre. It investigated in-vitro meat to see if it was a food astronauts could eat in space.Ten years on and scientists in the field are now promoting it as a more efficient and environmentally friendly way of putting meat on our plates.

A recent study by Oxford University found growing meat in a lab rather than slaughtering animals would significantly reduce greenhouse gases, along with energy and water use. Production also requires a fraction of the land needed to raise cattle. In addition it could be customized to cut the fat content and add nutrients.

Prof Mark Post, who led the Dutch team of scientists at Maastricht University, says he wants to make lab meat ‘indistinguishable’ from the real stuff, but it could potentially look very different. Stephens, who is studying the debate over in-vitro meat, says there are on-going discussions in the field about what it should look like.

He says the idea of such a product is hard for people to take on board because nothing like it currently exists.

‘We simply don’t have a category for this type of stuff in our world, we don’t know what to make of it,’ he says. ‘It is radically different in terms of provenance and product.'” (Thanks Browser.)

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“That’s a big chicken”:

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“The Idea Is To Find A Way To Create The Meat Without The Animal By Growing It Directly”

November 28, 2011 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Animal-free, factory-grown meat isn’t practical to produce yet, but it is coming. An excerpt from David Szondy’s new Gizmag article on the topic:

“Dr. Mark Post, a vascular biologist at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands, is one of a handful of scientists around the world working on the problem ofcultivating meat artificially in a laboratory. The idea is to find a way to create the meat without the animal by growing it directly. Speaking to the Reuters news agency, Dr. Post estimates that, if he succeeds, his first burger will cost a staggering $345,000, but when the technique is perfected and scaled up to industrial levels, economies of scale should kick in and make lab-grown beef (or pork or chicken or fish) as cheap, if not cheaper, than its four-legged counterpart. He also believes that the advantages of in vitro meat, as it is called, are such that it will go a long way toward alleviating world hunger and saving the environment.”

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