- Demonstrates new transdisciplinary research model uniting 25+ leading scientists in a volunteer effort
- Disrupts by concluding lean fish meat likely simplest for cell-based replication and zebrafish best first R&D species
July 28, 2020 – Clean Research, a 501(c)(3) science and technology initiative, announced the publication of its groundbreaking research paper, “A More Open Approach Is Needed to Develop Cell-Based Fish Technology: It Starts with Zebrafish,” demonstrating that lean fish meat is likely a more straightforward first cell-based meat to produce as a one-for-one replacement equivalent for real meat.
The paper has been commissioned by Cell Press and published by One Earth, one of the world’s most selective journals for sustainability science.
Sustainably meeting the growing demand for fish protein is a key challenge. In farming tilapia, 4 out of every 5 acres of protein inputs from soybean or maize crops are lost. Advancing cell-based meat technology is a priority because it has the potential to be more efficient, particularly in how it processes protein inputs, measured as protein retention.
“The publishing of our paper supports a clear-cut case for cell-based lean fish meat. In doing so, we also set a new model and path forward for game-changing transdisciplinary collaboration to urgently address the research crisis and environmental challenges we face,” says Alain Rostain, lead-author and founder of Clean Research. “One Earth and the disruptive nature of the paper are an ideal match for calling the world’s attention back to the value of science as our North Star to guide us through the challenging times ahead to a better future.”
The paper proposes a cell-to-fork framework for the production of cell-based lean fish meat. Validated technical takeaways include:
- Meat production is, in essence, driven by the transport and reassembling of amino acid/protein content into skeletal muscle
- Protein retention is a critical, but often ignored, measure for understanding the sustainability of meat production methods
- Fish farming uses “Feed Conversion Ratio” to claim that it is more sustainable than other animal agriculture. From an input resource perspective, when considering the more meaningful measures of protein and calorie retention, fish farming is highly inefficient, as is the case for tilapia farming.
The paper can be accessed online at https://www.cell.com/one-earth/fulltext/S2590-3322(20)30294-3
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