News + Trends
Vegan ice cream tested: good overall, 2 well-known brands fail
by Debora Pape
Ground beef from the lab: ETH team achieves a breakthrough
4/8/2025
Translation: machine translated
Breeding artificial beef is associated with a number of hurdles. So far, artificially produced muscle fibres are not similar enough to those of cattle, but this could soon change. The ETH has now presented better results.
A team led by Professor Ori Bar-Nur at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich is researching beef from the petri dish. There are many hurdles to overcome, but the researchers are apparently making good progress, as the ETH writes in a press release. The team has succeeded in cultivating thick bovine muscle fibres in the laboratory that are much more similar to natural bovine muscle tissue in molecular and functional terms than previous results. Previous experiments resulted in thin fibres that also lacked some proteins.
The flavour and consistency of the laboratory meat should also resemble naturally grown beef. So far, however, the team has only produced a few grams of the meat. Breeding larger quantities is the subject of ongoing research, says PhD student Christine Trautmann. The scientists published their results in a new study. The molecular production processes are described in detail there.
Better results through the addition of three molecules
According to a statement from ETH Zurich, Professor Bar-Nur has been researching the treatment of muscle wasting diseases for many years. Seven years ago, he discovered that three specific molecules positively influence the growth of muscle cells outside the body. This causes so-called muscle precursor cells to develop functionally in different directions. This is necessary so that fibres that are as natural as possible are created in the further process. As soon as this differentiation is complete, the foreign molecules can be removed again.
The fact that artificial bovine muscle fibres also benefit from the addition of these three molecules was an additional discovery made by chance. Should the artificially produced meat reach the market in the future, it would contain only muscle cells and be almost indistinguishable from naturally grown beef at a molecular level, the ETH continues.
Why is research being carried out on laboratory meat?
According to the press release, numerous teams around the world are working on producing meat without stables, animal transport and slaughterhouses. Researchers therefore see good opportunities to serve customer groups that have ethical concerns about meat production. In Singapore, for example, lab-grown chicken meat is already on the market - although it contains plant proteins for cost reasons.
The ETH scientists also see their research as an article on the road to more environmentally and climate-friendly meat production. However, there is still a lot of research needed in this regard, as laboratory meat production is currently still energy-intensive.
Some problems remain before market maturity
Currently, the production of large quantities of artificial beef is associated with high costs. A culture medium is required for cell growth, which is currently still very expensive. One aim of current laboratory meat research is therefore to find more cost-effective solutions for this.
In addition, according to the study, the ETH team uses a small amount of bovine serum taken from unborn calves. The animals die during collection. The study also states that the use of animal serum is unfavourable and alternatives are being sought. The laboratory meat producer Mosa Meat announced in a study in 2022 that it will work without animal serum.
Not least, the artificial beef must first be authorised before it can be sold. In Switzerland and Germany, lab-grown meat is not banned in principle, but due to the lengthy approval process, no lab-grown meat product has yet been authorised. The focus is on ensuring that the meat is harmless to health.
Header image: Shutterstock/New Africa
Feels just as comfortable in front of a gaming PC as she does in a hammock in the garden. Likes the Roman Empire, container ships and science fiction books. Focuses mostly on unearthing news stories about IT and smart products.
71 comments
later