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The beauty of exponential cell growth is that you start with one, and then the next day, you get two. … Obviously, it’s never going to be 100% efficient, but we have a lot of power in that exponential growth. If we use it appropriately, we can produce just unlimited amounts of meat.

Marie Gibbons

First, decide on the type of animal. Next, pick the cell type. Then take a small, painless biopsy, and put the cells in a solution that makes them feel like they’re still in the body. Once the cells are in this comfortable state, they’ll proliferate. One cell becomes two, two becomes four, four becomes eight, and so on. Continue until you have enough cells to make a burger, a nugget, a sausage, or a piece of bacon, then concentrate them until they bind into solid meat.

It’s all surprisingly straightforward in principle according to Marie Gibbons, a research fellow with The Good Food Institute, who has been researching how to improve this process at Harvard Medical School. We might even see clean meat sold commercially within a year.

The real technical challenge is developing large bioreactors and cheap solutions so that we can make huge volumes and drive down costs.

This interview covers the science and technology involved at each stage of clean meat production, the challenges and opportunities that face cutting-edge researchers like Marie, and how you could become one of them.

Marie’s research focuses on turkey cells. But as she explains, with clean meat the possibilities extend well beyond those of traditional meat. Chicken, cow, pig, but also panda – and even dinosaurs could be on the menus of the future.

Today’s episode is hosted by Natalie Cargill, a barrister in London with a background in animal advocacy. Natalie and Marie also discuss:

  • Why Marie switched from being a vet to developing clean meat
  • For people who want to dedicate themselves to animal welfare, how does working in clean meat fare compared to other career options? How can people get jobs in the area?
  • How did this become an established field?
  • How important is the choice of animal species and cell type in this process?
  • What are the biggest problems with current production methods?
  • Is this kind of research best done in an academic setting, a commercial setting, or a balance between the two?
  • How easy will it be to get consumer acceptance?
  • How valuable would extra funding be for cellular agriculture?
  • Can we use genetic modification to speed up the process?
  • Is it reasonable to be sceptical of the possibility of clean meat becoming financially competitive with traditional meat any time in the near future?

The 80,000 Hours podcast is produced by Keiran Harris.

Image credits: Featured image – the range of bioreactors available from Sartorius. Social share image – figure 2 from GFI’s Mapping Emerging Industries:
Opportunities in Clean Meat
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Highlights

The first question to ask yourself is what type of animal you want to start growing meat from. I chose a turkey, but there are clearly lots of different animals out there, be they farm animals, so your turkeys, and your ducks, and your chickens, and your cows, and your pigs, and various types of fish. I think another kind of cool, exciting possibility is the fact that it’s not just limited to farm animals with these possibilities. We can be growing panda meat if we want to, if anybody’s interested in eating panda. Or, relevant to something that I’m looking at, if you’re interested in mammoth or dinosaur meat, the ultimate paleo diet. There’s a lot of possibilities with that that traditional meat just doesn’t offer us right now.

I’m not sure how different the openness of academia is compared to working for a company, other than the fact that clearly, once I am able to publish something, it will then be public knowledge. But there’s always the risk that something that I’m working really hard on is something that several other companies have already figured out. So, I guess it’s a matter of what your interests are. I think in terms of figuring things out that are completely novel, have nothing to do with anything that you individually, personally have done before, nothing to do with what others have researched before, then the basic science is necessary in academia, where you have access to these great minds and these very expensive pieces of equipment and the freedom to explore different alternatives without that time crunch.

At the same time, when you’re working with something that has been proven to work, and it’s a matter of optimizing, and I think that clean meat is falling into this category every single day as more and more research is taking place, I think that it may be better to happen in the industry. Not only because of the fast pace, but at the same time, I think that people that could be very valuable to this field are going to be expected to be compensated very well as well. While academia is certainly cushy in some respects, you’re definitely going to get a bigger paycheck when you’re working in industry. So, that’s something that should be taken into consideration, too.

This small group of people that are willing to pay a little bit extra are going to make a huge difference for this movement because as wonderful as it would be to assume and to see everyone deciding to put more money into something that is more environmentally efficient and more ethically produced, it’s something that just isn’t happening for a variety of reasons, be it because people can’t afford to, or people aren’t aware. Unfortunately, in some cases, people just don’t care, but I would hope that that’s not the majority of the reason behind it.

The people that do, that are willing to put a little extra money behind this to pay for something that is more expensive, in the long run, that is going to help drive the cost of clean meat down to the price where people can choose … If their choice is, for what type of meat they want, is based solely on cost, which I think a fair amount of people, that is their determining factor is cost and taste and convenience, then we will be able to get to a point where, if they’re sitting in the supermarket, or standing in the supermarket, and they’re looking at something that was made in a bioreactor versus something that was slaughtered and taken from an animal, they will decide to take that product from a bioreactor because it is cheaper. I really believe that that’s going to happen. But in order for it to happen, we do need that initial support from people that are willing to pay a little bit extra, but it won’t always be that way.

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About the show

The 80,000 Hours Podcast features unusually in-depth conversations about the world's most pressing problems and how you can use your career to solve them. We invite guests pursuing a wide range of career paths — from academics and activists to entrepreneurs and policymakers — to analyse the case for and against working on different issues and which approaches are best for solving them.

The 80,000 Hours Podcast is produced and edited by Keiran Harris. Get in touch with feedback or guest suggestions by emailing [email protected].

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