AssetID: 54674189
Headline: RAW VIDEO: Japanese Researchers Grow Synthetic Meat 'Chicken Nuggets' In Scientific First
Caption: Researchers in Japan have successfully cultivated the largest piece of lab-grown meat to date - chicken that could be the filling for the nuggets of the future. To achieve the feat they used a sophisticated artificial "circulatory system" that delivers nutrients and oxygen to the developing tissue. Shoji Takeuchi, a biohybrid systems engineer at the University of Tokyo, led the team behind the breakthrough. The scientists managed to grow a single slab of chicken meat measuring 7cm in length, 4cm in width, and 2.25cm in thickness. Weighing 11 grams – roughly the size of a standard chicken nugget – the development marks a significant step forward in cellular agriculture. The findings were published in the journal Trends in Biotechnology. Although the cultured meat has not yet been produced remains untested for consumption, the team are in discussions with several companies to further develop the technology. Cultivated meat, often made by harvesting animal cells and nurturing them in controlled environments, is not a new concept. Several companies around the world have begun to commercialise such products, particularly in the United States and Singapore, where regulatory approval has been granted. In 2023, the UK became the first European nation to approve the use of cultivated meat in pet food. Most cultivated meat currently on the market is made up of tiny fragments of tissue, assembled into larger products either by printing cells onto edible scaffolds or binding them together using food-safe adhesives. For instance, California-based GOOD Meat, a division of Eat Just, produces shredded chicken consisting of just 3% cultured meat mixed with plant-based ingredients. Israeli company Aleph Farms uses 3D-printing technology to combine beef muscle and fat cells into steak-like products. However, creating a single, intact slab of meat is regarded as the holy grail for lab-grown meat researchers, as it more closely resembles the structure, texture, and mouthfeel of conventional cuts. Achieving this is technically complex. In animals, blood vessels supply oxygen and nutrients deep into tissues. Without a comparable system, cultured cells cannot thrive or grow in thick volumes. To tackle this, Takeuchi’s team used a bioreactor containing a network of semipermeable hollow fibres, acting like synthetic blood vessels, to nourish the growing chicken tissue from within. The results are now in - and they are bite-sized, lab-grown chicken fibres, structured and matured into a single solid piece of meat – the largest of its kind ever reported. While it may be some time before such meat lands on supermarket shelves, this advance brings researchers one step closer to producing large, structured cuts of cultivated meat without the need to raise or slaughter animals.
Keywords: tokyo,feature,photo,video,chicken,synthetic meat,tech,technology
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