The University of California, Davis (UC Davis) has received a grant up to $3.55 million from the National Science Foundation Growing Convergence program to study the sustainability and viability of cell-cultured meat.
“The societal need is to feed 9 billion people,” said principal investigator David Block, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Viticulture and Enology and professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering. “What we want to know is, will cultivated meat be a viable supplement to traditional agriculture?” Block doesn’t see lab-grown meat as replacing conventional agriculture, but as adding more production and flexibility.
He said farmers might find it advantageous to produce lab-grown meat alongside conventional agriculture. The project will run over five years and has the following goals: developing stable stem cell lines from which cultivated meat can be grown; developing inexpensive, plant-based media in which to grow the cells; and assessing the nutritional value, stability and sensory qualities of cultivated meat products.
