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Scientists Use Stem Cells To Grow Animal-Free Pork In a Lab (digitaltrends.com)

A new study published in the journal Scientific Reports describes research "designed to generate muscle from a newly established pig stem-cell line, rather than from primary cells taken directly from a pig," says co-author Dr. Nicholas Genovese, a stem-cell biologist. "This entailed understanding the biology of relatively uncharacterized and recently-derived porcine induced pluripotent stem cell lines. What conditions support cell growth, survival and differentiation? These are all questions I had to figure out in the lab before the cells could be turned into muscle." Digital Trends reports: It may not sound like the most appetizing of foodstuffs, but pig skeletal muscle is in fact the main component of pork. The fact that it could be grown from a stem-cell line, rather than from a whole pig, is a major advance. This is also true of the paper's second big development: the fact that this cultivation of pig skeletal muscle didn't use animal serum, a component which has been used in other livestock muscle cultivation processes. [Genovese] acknowledges that there are other non-food-related possibilities the work hints at. "There is a contingent interest in using the pig as a model to study disease and test regenerative therapies for human conditions," he said.

6 of 126 comments (clear)

  1. That's nothing by Atmchicago · · Score: 5, Funny

    Washington, D.C. has been growing animal-free pork for the last two centuries.

    --

    You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.

  2. Re:Mmmm! meat pudding! by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Funny

    If all you can produce are lot's of animal cells then I think you've just invented meat pudding.

    You say "meat pudding" as if it were a bad thing.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  3. Re:Mmmm! meat pudding! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Don't be so porkdantic.

  4. Re:Get to the point... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Like chicken.

  5. How to get stem cell research funded ... by perpenso · · Score: 4, Funny

    How to get stem cell research funded ... promote it as a way to get more bacon.

    How to get human stem cell research funded ... promote it as a way to get a new heart after all that bacon.

  6. Re:Mmmm! meat pudding! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Or so ham-fisted.