UK-based Extracellular, a contract growth and manufacturing organisation (CDMO) providing cultivated meat and seafood gamers experience in media and course of growth, and scale-up, believes that present cell line procurement processes are hindering analysis.
In keeping with the corporate, animal major cells related for cultivated meat analysis are costly, usually of poor high quality, and include restricted data relating to their efficiency or provenance.
Additional, their use is restricted by licensing or business elements Extracellular believes can impede progressive applied sciences and approaches on this burgeoning subject.
“Main cells are the constructing blocks for cultivated meat analysis, however good cells are too arduous to entry for a lot of researchers in {industry} and academia,” stated Dr Will Milligan, co-founder and CEO of Extracellular.
The CDMO is responding with the launch of low-cost, licence-free cell banks to assist cultivated meat analysis.
First up: cells from cow, pig and lamb
The cell banks initially provide cells remoted from the fats, muscle, and bone marrow tissues of cow, pig and lamb, which Extracellular sourced through collaborations with native farmers and the College of Bristol’s Veterinary Faculty.
The CDMO goals so as to add seafood and avian major cell banks throughout the subsequent 12 months.
Data on the cells’ provenance, together with age, breed, and intercourse of the animal, in addition to passage numbers and anticipated inhabitants doubling instances, will probably be included with every batch.
The cell financial institution initiative is designed to assist early-stage corporations and researchers on this sector by offering not solely high-quality animal major cells which can be appropriate for cultivated meat R&D, however are as much as 90% cheaper than different cell line suppliers, and free from licensing restrictions.
As to how the CDMO is ready to scale back the value so considerably, Dr Milligan defined the crew optimised cell isolation protocols and used its experience in high-throughput analysis to supply the banks. “With this initiative, we’re prioritising the development of cultivated meat analysis and innovation over revenue.
“We predict it’s essential to make these cells accessible, within the hope that it could possibly make a significant distinction in bringing new merchandise and options to market.”
Collaboration with Multus Biotechnology
The cell banks have been created with funding from Innovate UK and developed in collaboration with Multus Biotechnology, a developer of food-safe progress media with which it hopes to speed up the scale-up of the cultivated meat {industry}.
Multus supplied protocols and key supplies to de-risk the cell financial institution venture along with unbiased high quality management for cell identification, cryopreservation, and progress characterisation, Dr Milligan defined.
“Each Multus and Extracellular confronted the identical challenges sourcing related cells to assist the event of enabling applied sciences for cultivated meat. Multus supported Extracellular by sharing their expertise in isolations, offering cells from isolations they’ve carried out beforehand, and is working with the cells to totally characterise efficiency and develop serum-free progress media formulations.”
Multus CEO Cai Linton stated he was excited to see the influence the collaboration may have on the cultivated meat {industry} within the UK. “Multus appears ahead to working with tutorial researchers and cultivated meat corporations to develop progressive applied sciences that can drive this {industry} ahead utilizing the cell financial institution as an enabling useful resource.”
‘We hope to be one of many first ports of name’
Extracellular has already acquired requests for the cell strains from a ‘big selection’ of corporations and establishments, defined Dr Milligan, from corporations growing cell strains who’re on the lookout for beginning supplies, to established cultivated meat corporations on the lookout for new sources of cells, to tutorial analysis teams trying to begin analysis in cultivated meat.
“We hope to be one of many first ports of name when corporations want cells for analysis,” he informed FoodNavigator.
“We’re hoping that by making industry-specific cells accessible and shortening instances to market, we are able to allow cultivated meat corporations to focus their efforts on market differentiation, high quality, scale, and sustainability.”
