GCR: Laying the Scientific and Engineering Foundation for Sustainable Cultivated Meat Production

该提案的重点是融合研究，包括科学、工程、经济、可持续性和消费者对养殖肉类生产的接受度。人造肉生产是在大型发酵罐中培养动物肌肉、脂肪和结缔组织细胞的过程，如牛肉、鸡肉、猪肉、火鸡肉或鱼，以生产富含蛋白质的肉制品。它解决了一个迫切而紧迫的社会问题，即寻找新的潜在途径，以营养和令人满意的饮食养活快速增长的全球人口，同时保护我们的环境和有限的资源。它需要包括干细胞工程、组织培养、动物与肉类科学、实验过程优化与人工智能、生化工程、工业发酵与制造、食品科学与工程、材料科学与生物材料、感官科学、技术经济建模、生命周期分析、消费科学等学科的深度融合。该项目的目标是为新兴的人造肉产业建立科学和工程基础，解决阻碍商业化的关键科学和工程瓶颈和知识差距，并培养将建设该产业的科学家和工程师。这样做将开发创造新的可持续蛋白质来源所必需的知识，并有可能支持新产业的发展。为了建立这一科学和工程基础，提出的融合研究将侧重于四个具体目标：1)开发干细胞扩增和分化为肌肉和脂肪的有效策略，以保持细胞系的稳定性和支持可扩展性；2)建立在廉价的、基于植物的、无血清的培养基中生长和分化细胞系的过程，直至中试规模；3)创建允许创建三维组织结构的生物材料和过程；4)完成养殖肉类生产的技术经济分析（TEA）和生命周期分析（LCA）。这些进步不仅会影响人造肉产业，还将更广泛地促进用于再生医学的干细胞工程、用于器官替代的生物材料和组织工程、用于生物治疗生产的大规模哺乳动物细胞培养、用于食品和生物制药生产的植物细胞培养过程，以及基于发酵的生物过程的技术经济和生命周期分析。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This proposal is focused on convergent research that encompasses the science, engineering, economics, sustainability, and consumer acceptance of cultivated meat production. Cultivated meat production is the process of growing animal muscle, fat, and connective tissue cells, such as beef, chicken, pork, turkey or fish, in large-scale fermentors to produce a protein-rich meat product. It addresses the compelling and immediate societal problem of finding new potential routes toward feeding a rapidly growing global population with a nutritious and satisfying diet, while protecting our environment and limited resources. It requires the deep integration of disciplines including stem cell engineering, tissue culture, animal and meat science, experimental process optimization and artificial intelligence, biochemical engineering, industrial fermentation and manufacturing, food science and engineering, materials science and biomaterials, sensory science, techno-economic modeling, life cycle analysis, and consumer science. The project goal is to establish the scientific and engineering foundation for the nascent cultivated meat industry, address critical scientific and engineering bottlenecks and knowledge gaps that inhibit commercialization, and train the scientists and engineers that will build the industry. Doing so will develop knowledge necessary for the creation of new sustainable protein sources and has the potential to support the growth of a new industry.In order to establish this scientific and engineering foundation, the proposed convergent research will focus on four specific aims: 1) develop an efficient strategy for stem cell amplification and differentiation to muscle and fat that maintains cell line stability and supports scalability, 2) establish a process for growing and differentiating cell lines in inexpensive, plant-based, serum-free medium up to pilot scale, 3) create biomaterials and processes that allow the creation of three-dimensional tissue structure, and 4) complete a techno-economic analysis (TEA) and life cycle analysis (LCA) for cultivated meat production. These advances will not only impact the cultivated meat industry, but will also contribute more broadly to stem cell engineering for regenerative medicine, biomaterials and tissue engineering for organ replacement, large-scale mammalian cell culture for biotherapeutics production, plant cell culture processes for food and biopharmaceutical production, and techno-economic and life cycle analyses of fermentation-based bioprocesses.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.