Stem cells-derived in vitro meat: from petri dish to dinner plate

Abstract

Sustainable food supply to the world is possibly the greatest challenge that human civilization has ever faced. Among animal sourced foods, meat plays a starring role in human food chain. Traditional meat production necessitates high proportion of agricultural land, energy and clean water for rearing meat-producing animals; also massive emission of greenhouse gases from the unutilized nutrients of the digestive process into the environment is a major challenge to the world. Also, conventional meat production is associated with evolution and spread of superbugs and zoonotic infections. In vitro meat has the potential to provide a healthy alternative nutritious meal and to avoid the issues associated with animal slaughtering and environmental effects. Stem cell technology may provide a fascinating approach to produce meat in an animal-free environment. Theoretically, in vitro meat can supplement the meat produced by culling the animals and satisfy the global demand. This article highlights the necessity and potential of stem cell-derived in vitro meat as an alternative source of animal protein vis-a-vis the constraints of conventional approaches of meat production.

Keywords:

• In vitro meat
• stem cells
• muscle cells
• scaffold

Compliance with ethical standards

The study does not involve experimentation and the animals.

Disclosure statement

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by the DST-SERB under grant EEQ/2018/000114.