Consolidation of 3D printing, cell biology and material technology for the development of bioprinted meat – a prototype study

Acronym: 3DMuscle
No.: PL-TWIII/5/2016
Program: Polish-Taiwanese contest
Financing unit: NCBR (National Centre for Research and Development)
Project leader: professor Wojciech Święszkowski and professor FengHuei Lin
Function: consortium member
Timeframe: 2016 - 2019

Project description

The prospect of lab-grown meat has intrigued both vegetarians and environmentalists for years. The bioprinted meat would be expected to satisfy a natural human craving for animal protein in a more environmentally-friendly way. Chitosan is a derivative of the naturally occurring carbohydrate chitin and consists of beta 1– 4 linked glucosamine units with varying amounts of N-acetylated units. We have chosen Chitosan, since chitosan dietary supplement purported to decrease body weight and serum lipids through gastrointestinal fat binding. A negatively charged sodium triphosphate (TPP) will be used as a toxic-free ionic crosslinker to interact with polycationic chitosan via ionic gelation. Followed by, the purified soybean protein (SP) will be introduced into the mixture since it may contain about 90% protein on a dry weight basis. There are no known side-effects are associated with the proposed formulation and it appears to be extremely safe. The proposed idea is similar to that of machines that can assemble edible substances like chocolate, sugar and syrup into a paste or any final product with a desired shape. Here, we intend to use the concept of tissue or organ printing often described as bioprinting to produce an in-vitro edible meat.