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Launch HN: Micro Meat (YC S21) – Technology for scaling cultivated meat

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Launch HN: Micro Meat (YC S21) – Technology for scaling cultivated meat

#51

Post by asmertgen »

buzzy_hacker wrote: post #24

Congratulations on the launch, I genuinely think this ranks among the most positive high-impact work one could be doing right now. The scale of animal cruelty is tremendous. Disrupting the meat industry is so important. Do let us know if you need any software engineers!

Thank you so much! We are extremely passionate about this and its great to see so much support here! Even though software engineering is not something we need right away we are very happy to connect with passionate people for future opportunities! You can drop us an email if you want to stay in touch!

Re: Launch HN: Micro Meat (YC S21) – Technology for scaling cultivated meat

#52

Post by [deleted] »

ada1981 wrote: post #14
thecolorblue wrote: post #9

I have also worked with bioreactors. Sounds like you have made some great progress. Just a couple thoughts: 1) there are plenty of other niches for microbe production that could possibly use the same technology. I am not suggesting you switch now, but something to keep in mind for the future. In my opinion, the current standard processes for working with bioreactors are slow and manual. I think there is a lot of room…

Can you share more about your ideas?

[deleted]

Re: Launch HN: Micro Meat (YC S21) – Technology for scaling cultivated meat

#53

Post by asmertgen »

allisdust wrote: post #27

May be not specific to your technology but a general question i have is how are the tissues and cells protected from bacteria? Does the growth medium contain antibiotics? If so, how is the final product separated from it.

In research often antibiotics are added to avoid contamination from handling etc. However, large scale and automated production processes can be run antibiotic free because of their very controlled sterile environment. Then the product would also be antibiotic free.

Re: Launch HN: Micro Meat (YC S21) – Technology for scaling cultivated meat

#54

Post by iamdvlpr »

vpribble wrote: post #15
tambourine_man wrote: post #10

Interesting stuff! I've read that contamination is a huge issue, essentially, bacteria grows much better and faster at the substrate than mammalian cells. So, how do you avoid inadvertently cultivating smelly plaques instead of delicious meat? Or is that not really an issue and I'm misinformed? Best of luck. We really need it.

Contamination is definitely a problem for cultivated meat. It is one of the leading risks when scaling because if the reactor is contaminated at all, you could lose entire batches of meat, and as you can imagine, this is a huge cost hit. To avoid this, cultivated meat is grown in sterile, clean environments. The same kind of equipment you'd find in a hospital (autoclaves) is used to sterilize the equipment common in…

I'm also assuming that with your system engineering background, you're also limiting personnel access to the reactors or better, to the rooms where they will be located as well as all security measures to avoid social engineering hacking into the facilities, right Vincent?

Congrats on the initiative, just absolutely fantastic!

Re: Launch HN: Micro Meat (YC S21) – Technology for scaling cultivated meat

#55

Post by samstave »

Some future Black Mirror comments on this concept:

You haven't paid your protein bill this month, thus your micormeat subscription has been suspended and your Meat Machine (TM) will no longer grow any new meat for you.

We have given our executives and shareholders an exceptional return on their investments, and with your lack of being able to pay your Protein Bill, our record profits are hurting, Your account has been permanently suspended.

We have reviewed your appeal, and we found that our pricing model of 'meat by the gram' is sound and we have done nothing wrong in preventing you from getting your weekly allowance of allowed protein substance [Product] and hereby will be blocking all access to our services. This is an automated message, you have no recourse and may never contact an employee of Made Meat. Do not reply to this message.

Re: Launch HN: Micro Meat (YC S21) – Technology for scaling cultivated meat

#56

Post by newaccount74 »

partisan wrote: post #21
Thebroser wrote: post #5

Hey! Bioengineering background here, how do you all embed the cells within the scaffold? Is your approach similar to other bioprinting approaches (initial cells seeded via extrusion, inkjet, or laser assisted deposition)? At first I would think this could be done with some sort of printable collagen scaffold but I'm curious for what your approach would be. In addition, as someone that is involved in therapeutics, I'm…

“Fetal bovine serum (FBS) is a ubiquitously used essential supplement in cell culture media. However, there are serious scientific and ethical concerns about the use of FBS regarding its harvest and production.” From an abstract of a research paper regarding FBS-free media.

For those who have never heard of FBS, the "ethical concern" is that FBS is made by slaughtering pregnant cows, cutting the calf fetus from the cow, and then draining the blood from the fetus by sticking a needle in its heart. When I first read about that I was a bit shocked, even though I'm not a vegetarian and have even worked with FBS during a lab at university, blissfully unaware how they made that yellow fluid.

Re: Launch HN: Micro Meat (YC S21) – Technology for scaling cultivated meat

#57

Post by asmertgen »

blondie9x wrote: post #3

@asmertgen thoughts on this research https://thecounter.org/lab-grown-cultivated-meat-cost-at-sca... ?

Great question. We had this discussion internally quite a lot. Since my co-founder comes from launching rockets let me use this analogy: 20 years ago Elon Musk was though to be crazy when he wanted to build reusable rockets. But now it works. It took a lot of smart minds, effort and money. But they did it. We believe it will be the same with cultivated meat. Completely changing a system, in our case food system, is always a risk and a bit crazy. We agree that the hype is not great. We don't want to make to bold promises. But we do want to change something and we will work hard to make our part to change a system.

Re: Launch HN: Micro Meat (YC S21) – Technology for scaling cultivated meat

#58

Post by asmertgen »

ada1981 wrote: post #17

I love this project as a vegan for the last 23 years! Our group EarthPilot would love to provide support to this civilization scale project. We work with some of the most brilliant and successful founders and teams on earth on leadership, mindset, high performance, culture and emotional mastery.

Great, do you want to shoot us an email?
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