Cultured meat and its introduction into our grocery stores and restaurants is on the horizon. The FDA has established a premarket consultation process that allows companies who would like to market cultured meat in the U.S. to work with the FDA towards approval of their products. Information submitted to the FDA as part of that process includes the scientific explanation of how the meat is made, the cell lines used, the growth medium(s) used to culture the cells, the culturing process, harvesting, etc.
Cultured meat products have not yet been approved for sale in the U.S., but UPSIDE Foods Inc. recently completed the premarket consultation process with the FDA and received a No Questions Letter from the FDA.
You might ask, what cells are used to make lab-grown meat? The multi-step science behind cultured meat relies first on the collection and development of a cell line. Cell lines are created from a particular type of cell that can self-renew and differentiate into the cell types that make up meat tissue.
Current research and development in food biotechnology are working with isolated stem cells, which have the ability to proliferate (multiply) in an undifferentiated state when maintained in a nutrient-rich environment.
The cell types that have the most promise in the cultivated food industry include satellite stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC).
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