Research project
Hybrid lipid-polymer electrospun scaffolds for cultivated meat manufacturing
- Start date: 9 June 2025
- End date: 8 December 2025
- Funder: EPSRC CARMA Hub
- Value: £158,855.04
- Partners and collaborators: Aberystwyth University; 3D Bio-Tissues Ltd
- Primary investigator: Dr Amin Sadeghpour
- Co-investigators: Julia Gala de Pablo, School of Physics and Astronomy
- External co-investigators: Dr Ruth Wonfor, Aberystwyth University; Dr Ricardo Gouveia, 3D Bio-Tissues Ltd
- Postgraduate students: Emily Storey, Yi Li
Cultivated meat or lab-grown meat is the meat produced by culturing animal cells in dedicated growth media. The process aims to minimise the environmental impact of food production, improve global food security and sustainability whilst enhancing healthy food production in the future.
A key challenging issue in producing cultivated meat that meets consumer expectations is developing systems that replicate the texture and structure and compositions of animal tissue. Scaffolds are often employed as artificial extracellular matrices during the cell culture process, providing structural support for cellular growth and thus controlling the form and texture of cultured meat products. As connective tissue, scaffolds play a crucial role in cellular signalling, their integrity, adhesion, and organisation during the cell culture process.
Due to the emerging nature of cultivated meat production, so far only a limited number of scaffolds has been developed for applications in the field. Creating scaffolds that are sustainable, safe and cost-effective, yet capable of providing the desired form and texture of cultivated meat is challenging.
This proposal will investigate the performance of recently formulated hierarchical hybrid scaffolds on production of cultivated meat, aiming to produce meat alternative prototypes that will mimic the structure, mechanical properties, and digestibility of traditional animal meat.