"Is a chemical really necessary to make artificial meat? The technology of growing cells with light instead of chemicals started with that question."
At an office in Seongdong District, Seoul, on Oct., Han Won-il, head of Tissen Biopharm, said, "While doing research in healthcare, I came to think that health starts with the basics of food, clothing, and shelter before treatment," and added, "For people to be healthy, the dining table has to be healthy first, doesn't it? That's why I began to focus on the meat problem."
Han graduated from the College of Life Science at Handong University and earned a doctorate from Pohang University of Science and Technology POSTECH in biomedical engineering and tissue engineering. At university, Han devoted effort to technologies that mimic human tissue, such as artificial organs, stem cell therapies, and biomaterials, by stacking cells with a 3D (three-dimensional) printer. At the end of that research, Han turned to food. It was cultured meat.
Cultured meat is made by extracting stem cells from cattle, chickens, or fish and differentiating them into muscle cells. If you increase the number of cells in a bioreactor and stack them in layers with a 3D printer, it takes the shape of meat. But there was a wall that had to be overcome for cultured meat to become reality: price. The growth factors and nutrients essential for cell culture are supplied through fetal bovine serum (FBS), which is not only expensive but also imposes a heavy environmental burden.
Tissen Biopharm replaced the growth factors of fetal bovine serum by irradiating cells with light at specific wavelengths. The principle is to stimulate receptor proteins that receive growth signals with light. Because no chemicals are used, there is almost no carbon emissions or wastewater, and little expense other than the electric bill is required. Han said, "If you expose cells to light at a specific wavelength for 30 minutes a day, they grow," and added, "With this method, we reduced culture expense to 1/18,000 of the previous level."
The company is now wrapping up verification of technology that uses the genes of edible plants such as radish, barley, and rice to grow cells with light. The researchers are going a step further by developing a method that induces cell proliferation and differentiation without light. A representative technology is a "temperature-based growth factor system" that controls growth and differentiation according to temperature. Cells proliferate at 37 degrees Celsius or higher, and differentiation is induced at 35 degrees or lower.
For price competitiveness, Tissen Biopharm makes its own basic culture medium, cell washing solution, freezing preservation solution, and even bio-ink needed in the culture process. Han said, "Culture media for research are usually not edible and, above all, expensive," and added, "We make our medium with food-grade ingredients, and even counting the bottle cost, it's about the price of a bottle of water."
The success of cultured meat is not determined by expense alone. Sensory completeness—such as the grain of the meat, marbling with evenly distributed fat, texture, and taste—is also important. Drawing on experience researching biomimicry and 3D printing, Han is implementing a tissue structure similar to real meat. Lean meat and fat fibers are stacked differently by part, and cells are made to produce on their own the proteins that give meat its characteristic color and flavor.
Han said the company will complete a "cost-free" culture system within a year that eliminates consumables that require recurring expense. Once the technology is commercialized, the consumer price could be lowered to about 40,000 to 50,000 won per kilogram. Considering that USDA-certified top-tier beef is about 80,000 won per kilogram, that is about half.
Recently in the United States, cultured meat corporations have continued to win approvals from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In Mar., the cultured pork fat of Mission Barns received FDA approval, and in Jun. and Jul., cultured salmon from Wildtype and cultured chicken products from Beliver Meats won approval, respectively. Tissen Biopharm said it is preparing to enter the U.S. and European markets, as well as Korea, based on its proprietary technology.
Han has brought cultured meat technology to just short of commercialization and is applying the same technology to the medical field. Han said, "The cultured meat we make is not just cells but edible tissue, and its technical complexity is similar to artificial organs," and added, "Once Tissen Biopharm's cultured meat system is complete, it can be applied to mass production of artificial organs." Han said, "The technology on the table ultimately leads to healthcare."