Discovery platform for novel thermostable recombinant growth factors

A new discovery platform aims to slash the cost of growth factors—the expensive proteins that feed lab-grown meat cells—by orders of magnitude, potentially making cultivated meat as cheap as traditional meat. The problem is straightforward: cultivated meat is grown from animal cells in steel bioreactors, but the liquid food they need, called culture media, relies on costly growth factors. These proteins currently make production far too expensive to compete with farmed meat. This 18-month industrial project will build a platform to find and produce new, heat-stable versions of these growth factors that are far cheaper to manufacture. If the platform succeeds, the impact would ripple across the UK’s food system and environment. Cultivated meat could replace some conventional meat, cutting CO₂ emissions by 92%, land use by 90%, water use by 66%, and antibiotic use by 70%—since 70% of antibiotics globally are used in animal agriculture. The technology also supports the UK’s cultivated meat sector in scaling up to create 8,300 highly skilled jobs by 2030, adding £2 billion to the economy, and reducing the £7.8 billion annual import bill for meat. For the consumer, it could mean affordable, slaughter-free meat on the shelf.