The National Growth Fund Project Cellular Agriculture aims to stimulate the upcoming and promising precision fermentation and cultured meat sector. As part of a 60 M€ government investment, Cellular Agriculture Netherlands (CAN) and NWO developed a research call. In total €4.1 million has been awarded to three new projects. Specifically, three consortia of public and private partners aim for upscaling and cost reduction of precision fermentation and cultivated meat production by addressing advancements in process and/or product technology and biology.
With Cellular Agriculture (CA), animal-based foods like dairy, meat and seafood are produced by using animal cells or micro-organisms. Reducing the amount of animals needed in our food system, it offers prospects for reduction of environmental impact, reduction of resource use, improvement of animal welfare and economic development. Cellular Agriculture can produce food ingredients as well as complete food products.
CAN is coordinating activities that focus on talent, public research, open-access scale-up facilities, regulated tasting activities of these novel foods, sector support, and public acceptance. This is a unique approach. A core research program with 17 PhD/EngD projects is ongoing since 2024, and is now being strengthened by three consortia that generate another 9 research positions. The call content was based on the latest insights and knowledge needs from the sector.
The three awarded projects are:
Upscaling Cultivated Meat Production via Cell Engineering (UP-CELL)
Main applicant: dr. Joshua Flack - TU Delft
Co-applicants: TU Delft - dr. Cees Haringa, prof. Jack Pronk, dr. Marieke Klijn, dr. Marcel Vieira-Lara, prof. Marcel Ottens, dr. Britte Bouchaut.
Consortium partners: Livestock Labs, Pluricells, Roslin Technologies, Joe’s Future Food, Opo Bio, Re:meat (Curve Biotech), Umami Meats, Cell4Food, Bruno Cell, Fishway, Cultivate at Scale, Cellular Agriculture UK, Tech4Meat, Qorium, Sartorius GmbH, TU Denmark, Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Tufts University School of Engineering, Imperial College London, New Harvest.
Cultivated meat has the potential to revolutionise protein production by offering sustainable and ethical alternatives to traditional animal farming. However, many challenges currently limit its commercial viability, including a critical lack of animal cells suitable for industrial production. In UP-CELL, we will combine precise cell engineering with detailed modelling and simulation approaches to understand and manipulate critical cell behaviours that allow for cost-effective, large-scale bioreactor cell cultures. We will build a platform for engineering of multiple cell types from different species, and demonstrate its use in industrial-scale cultivated meat and seafood bioprocesses, helping bring these technologies to market.
MeatUp – engineering the future of whole-meat cuts by biomanufacturing
Main applicant: dr. David Kilian - MERLN Institute, Maastricht University
Co-applicants: dr. Olaf Brouwers - Hogeschool Zuyd, dr. Antoinette Kazbar - Wageningen University & Research, dr. Lorenzo Moroni - Maastricht University, dr. Matt Baker - Maastricht University.
Consortium partners: CHILL, IamFluidics B.V., Sartorius GmbH, Seaweedland (Iceventures BV).
The emerging industry of cellular agriculture has the potential to grow nutritious meat from mammalian cell cultures. In the Netherlands, we have the unique chance to build a new ecosystem for public and private institutions to push forward the idea of creating a more sustainable, healthier source of protein with ecological responsibility. This project brings together expertise from biofabrication, bioprocess engineering, cell biology and design of edible biomaterials. Together, we scale-up the production of cell-material building blocks, use natural resources (e.g. seaweed, algae) to increase nutritious value and tissue development, and connect processing techniques to bioreactors for further tissue maturation.
FungCows: Fungal Cell Factories for generation of cow-free products
Main applicant: prof. dr. Arthur Ram, Leiden University
Co-applicants: Miaomiao Zhou – AVANS, dr. Laura Claret Fernández - HAN-BioCentre, dr. Christof Francke - HAN-BioCentre.
Consortium partners: BioscienZ, Those Vegan Cowboys, Biotechnology Fermentation Facility (BFF).
This project focuses on establishing a new bioprocess using a non-model fungus for heterologous milk protein expression from grass. This partnership covers the entire process chain: from strain design (Leiden University, Avans) and laboratory-scale fermentation (HAN BioCentre, BioscienZ) to process integration and validation (HBC, BioscienZ, Those Vegan Cowboys, BFF). All consortium partners will collaborate and learn from each other in all work packages. The complementary expertise of all consortium partners will ensure the successful development of this new bioprocess from start to finish.
NWO
NWO is the most important Dutch science funding agency and ensures quality and innovation in scientific research. NWO implements thematic programmes for research, knowledge development, and innovation that are funded by the National Growth Fund. The results of these programmes can be applied in innovations and organizations, thereby contributing to the sustainable earning capacity and broad prosperity of the Netherlands. The programmes bring together partners from the entire knowledge chain, both public and private.
Cellular Agriculture Netherlands
Cellular Agriculture Netherlands is a foundation working to create a sustainable ecosystem of people and organisations for the cellular agriculture sector. Cellular agriculture is a technology to produce animal products merely using animal cells and micro-organisms. For this, the National Growth Fund has allocated funding for the Cellular Agricultur project.
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