An aquaculture researcher from the University of the Sunshine Coast (USC) has secured a seed grant from US-based research institute New Harvest to develop cell-based crayfish meat. The grant recipient, Lisa Musgrove, will be using the funds to investigate crayfish growth factors and cell culture during her Honours degree in 2021, under the supervision of USC GeneCology Research Centre scientist, Dr. Tomer Ventura. Musgrove will be the first Australian to receive a grant from New Harvest, one of the only sources for funding academic research in cellular agriculture.
Featured
News
Three late-stage PhD candidates from Western Australian universities have been accepted into an industry internship program to undertake cultivated meat research. The internships are funded by the Government of Western Australia, a first for the Australian cellular agriculture sector. The project will involve growing meat cells on Cass Materials' proprietary ingredient derived from nata de coco cellulose, and researching the socio-environmental impacts of scaling its production.
- By optimizing culture media ingredients specifically for cultivated meat production, and by producing those ingredients at scale, costs may be reduced to as little as $0.24 per liter. This would enable cell-cultured meat produced in bioreactors to reach prices competitive with their animal-based counterparts. But investment and demand needed to reach those economies of scale remain a constraint on lowering cultivated meat production costs.
- Cultured insect meat products might look more like normal burgers and steaks than you’d expect. But what is entomoculture, why might we need it, how does it work, and who’s leading the research? Prodigious young science writer and New Harvest summer intern, Avery Parkinson, answers all your questions.
As global demand for protein grows steadily, our sources of animal protein must diversify to keep up. And Australia is well placed to become an international powerhouse for an emerging research field that could transform the way we produce and eat meat: cellular agriculture.
