First, you start with a naturally grown bone-in leg of lamb. Then you completely decellularize it by running a detergent solution through it for a week. Then you culture the replacement lamb cells, and inject them into the appropriate places on the limb. Then you place the leg in a bioreactor and wait until the cell cultures spread throughout the existing matrix. Then, when you finish, you have a lab-grown leg that is 80% as good as the natural one!
Having to start with a natural limb seems to be the roadblock here.
So we're going to need to be able to volume-print an extracellular matrix before anybody gets any vat steaks. I'd guess a destructive scan of a single natural beef tenderloin and some stem cells from the World's Most Delicious Bovine would allow for unlimited numbers of vat-grown copies. And then it would still take quite a while to bring the unit cost down below feedlot cattle.
So I guess I just have to wait until we have good enough 3D scanners to build a model of the non-cellular structures in the leg, then we need good enough 3D printers to print edible non-cellular structures at small enough sizes for the re-cellularization to work, and then I can eat a lab grown leg of lamb!
No, because for this to work you start with a bone-in leg of lamb, then strip out the cellular material and regrow it with new cells more suitable for the host.
there is no point if you just want to eat it
however, I guess if you want to have different type of legs (picture Pan) then I guess you could strip out the cellular material from a goats leg and repopulate it with human ones then graft it on.. hmm, I wonder if that would work anyway
logfromblammo|10 years ago
Having to start with a natural limb seems to be the roadblock here.
So we're going to need to be able to volume-print an extracellular matrix before anybody gets any vat steaks. I'd guess a destructive scan of a single natural beef tenderloin and some stem cells from the World's Most Delicious Bovine would allow for unlimited numbers of vat-grown copies. And then it would still take quite a while to bring the unit cost down below feedlot cattle.
techwraith|10 years ago
unknown|10 years ago
[deleted]
clort|10 years ago
there is no point if you just want to eat it
however, I guess if you want to have different type of legs (picture Pan) then I guess you could strip out the cellular material from a goats leg and repopulate it with human ones then graft it on.. hmm, I wonder if that would work anyway