Culture, Expansion and Trandifferentiation of Chicken Mesenchymal Cells, Towards Muscle and Fat Cells, for Clean (Cultured) Meat Production

Chicken meat is a major source of dietary protein whose production consumes over 40% of global land and water resources while producing 18% of global greenhouse emissions. Recent studies showed that over 70% of chicken meat in the United States contain unsafe levels of arsenic and antibiotic resistant bacteria.

Cultured meat technology is a promising solution estimated to use only 2% of the landmass, and produce 4% of greenhouse emissions for equivalent production. In current practice, cultured meat companies expand muscle stem cells in bioreactors, forming muscle fibers, and assembling those fibers into ground meat, in a process that requires both animal serum for cell expansion, and addition of animal fat for reproducing authentic flavor. Muscle cells have a limited expansion potential, requiring a new animal biopsy for every 500 kg of product generated, driving the price of the end product as high as $3,000 per Kg.

In contrast, we (Future Meat Technologies) developed a proprietary chicken mesenchymal cell source that spontaneously immortalized (i.e. non-GMO) and can be differentiated to produce both muscle and fat. We developed a serum free, animal free medium formulation for the culture, expansion and differentiation of our cells. This process is carried out under antibiotic free conditions, using FDA approved small molecules rather than genetic modification of the cells. Our technology provides the means of producing both muscle and animal fat, without animal derived products, for production of cultured meat and plant-based substitutes.

*Merav Cohen and Daniel Kitsberg Contributed equally