Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 205 posts

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

#91

Post by allisdust »

newaccount74 wrote: post #56
partisan wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“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.

Wow. And I thought a komodo dragon eating a pregnant deer with fetus was the worst I have seen or imagined. Ethics aside, how do the people doing the procedure stand it without going crazy.

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

#92

Post by idealmedtech »

Hi Anne-Sophie and Vincent, excellent post and congratulations on the launch! My main question is about the growth factors; I've heard that there's a few compounds used in these processes that really don't scale, fetal bovine serum being the biggest one right now. Do you have novel approaches to creating this? How will this scale in the future?

Thanks, best of luck!

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

#93

Post by 2457013579 »

Nathanael_M wrote: post #48
asmertgen wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't had the chance to taste the meat of other companies sadly, but we plan on be ready for tasting of our product in the next months!

Let me know if you need any beta testers ;)

Beta tasters*

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

#94

Post by ReadEvalPost »

jallen_dot_dev wrote: post #90
ReadEvalPost wrote: post #79

Harm is done to the ecosystem when we concentrate cows in one place and feed them chemically fortified slurry. When cows are allowed to graze pastures, they instead have a positive effect on the local ecosystem. As such, I am extremely skeptical that the right way forward is to reduce and concentrate the essence of a cow into bioreactors and feed them chemically fortified slurry.

I don't think bioreactors produce giant lakes of shit[1], so from an ecological standpoint this will be an absolute win. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayGJ1YSfDXs&t=36s

What waste products do the bioreactors produce? How are they disposed?

As I said, concentrated feed operations are bad. That shit should be dispersed in a pasture, fertilizing it.

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

#95

Post by Nathanael_M »

shafyy wrote: post #87
Nathanael_M wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These both demand behaviour changes. Using renewable energy is a behaviour change (although no one's running their own oil refinery in their backyard) even if it's at a different tier and eating plant based meats is CERTAINLY a behaviour change. I think asking everyone to start eating mediocre faux-ground-beef is a pretty big behaviour change.

Following that logic, eating lab-grown meat will is also a behavior change. So, my point still stands.

I didn't say it wasn't a behaviour change. This was a response to your statement that your solutions didn't demand behaviour changes, when they both demand significant behaviour changes.

My argument, which I have yet to state in this dialogue, is that lab grown meat offers the opportunity to provide an experience very similar to eating "real" meat at a lower cost to the consumer, thus making it a viable alternative in ways that today's current plant based meat substitutes aren't.

I am definitely open to plant based meat substitutes taking that role, but in their current form that would still require a large behaviour change by a large percentage of the population.

Now renewable energy is different discussion and that requires a much smaller number of people to make (albeit much larger) behaviour changes.

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

#96

Post by vpribble »

idealmedtech wrote: post #92

Hi Anne-Sophie and Vincent, excellent post and congratulations on the launch! My main question is about the growth factors; I've heard that there's a few compounds used in these processes that really don't scale, fetal bovine serum being the biggest one right now. Do you have novel approaches to creating this? How will this scale in the future? Thanks, best of luck!

Thank you! For the growth factors, we do not have any plans currently for producing them in-house, however there are several companies within the industry (Future Fields for example) that are making great progress in developing animal-free growth factors. Right now, using precision fermentation seems to be the preferred method of production. This is essentially beer brewing but the yeast is modified to produce a certain protein/ growth factor. Since this process is yeast based, it should scale fairly well, as yeast is resistant to the stresses found inside the fermenters.

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

#97

Post by jallen_dot_dev »

ReadEvalPost wrote: post #94
jallen_dot_dev wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think bioreactors produce giant lakes of shit[1], so from an ecological standpoint this will be an absolute win. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayGJ1YSfDXs&t=36s

What waste products do the bioreactors produce? How are they disposed? As I said, concentrated feed operations are bad. That shit should be dispersed in a pasture, fertilizing it.

I'm interested in those answers, too. I imagine it's much less waste because you can feed the cells just what they need to grow, instead of feeding the bacteria in the guts of an animal.

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

#99

Post by forgotmyoldacc »

txsoftwaredev wrote: post #98

Beyond Meat is down close to 70% this year. I wouldn't be to optimistic that folks want to eat fake meat. It's clear they aren't selling in the grocery stores.

Beyond Meat is not meat though. It's not even close in taste.

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

#100

Post by triyambakam »

second--shift wrote: post #43

This is very interesting from a society/technology perspective. I support your efforts! I do have one or two fundamental questions about this industry/space, not necessarily related to this company, but this might be a good place to ask. I am a vegan of about 10 years now, and as (potentially) a constituent of the addressable market, here's why I'm not going to buy lab-grown "meat": my primary motivations for dietary…

> dietary vegan

Plant based is probably the most common term for what you're trying to describe. Veganism is the ethical position.

Post reply on HN