Cultured Meat offers enormous potential for addressing concerns around sustainability, animal welfare and environmental impact of the traditional meat industry. However, technoeconomic challenges remain in scaling production to meet market demand, estimated to reach $20Bn by 2030\. Cultured meat is produced by directly culturing animal cells. This production method eliminates the need to raise and farm animals for food, meaning that cultured meat production has a considerably lower environmental impact than its conventional counterpart. Cultured meat consists of the same cell types that can be arranged in the same structure as animal tissues to replicate the taste, texture and nutritional profiles of conventional meat. Producing cultured meat can be challenging due to longevity of most cell lines and their abilities to differentiate into required cell types, including muscle and fat. Roslin Technologies (RTL) are the first and leading provider of high quality cell lines for the cultivated meat sector. We develop induced pluripotent stem cell lines (iPSC) that can differentiate into muscle and fat, supported by customised cell culture media and processes. Our cells are well suited to the cultured meat industry as they are non-GMO, grow quickly, are genetically stable and can grow in suspension culture without the need for additional scaffolds. At RTL we have demonstrated our cells can grow in small-scale benchtop bioreactors, but the next step is to transfer this to industry relevant pilot-scale bioreactors. With Innovate UK and Innosuisse support RTL are excited to partner with The Cultured Hub (TCH) in Kemptthal, Switzerland. TCH is a dedicated cultured meat contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO) that provides expertise in process intensification and scale-up. In this project RTL and TCH will work together to realise the full potential of RTL stem cells. Researchers will work to optimise cell yields, quality and safety through media and bioprocess development. The data and know how generated by this project will help demonstrate the commercial potential of RTL cells and position TCH as a leading CDMO for cultured meat bioprocess development. The projects focus on cultured meat safety will also provide valuable information to regulators and policy makers to help define UK CM quality and safety standards. We believe this will benefit cultured meat producers and the industry as a whole to reach mass consumer markets faster. Ultimately this will support a more resilient food system and contribute to Paris Agreement goals and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The market for cultivated meat is expanding rapidly, opening huge opportunities for businesses in this sector. Roslin Technologies' vision is to serve cultivated meat producers globally by providing them with key cellular and media tools to cost-effectively develop their food products. Roslin Technologies has already developed innovative tools that serve companies working on cultivated pork products and, in this project, plans to work with Singaporean company, Turtle Tree, a world leader and innovator in novel foods product development. Here, the two companies will come together to develop cultivated lobster and shrimp, a key global market that is set to benefit widely from the provision of protein alternatives to wild-caught or farmed crustacea. The project will blend recent advances in animal stem cell biology made by Roslin Technologies with Turtle Tree's media, bioprocessing, scaffolding and product development expertise to generate novel cell lines from Pacific Whiteleg Shrimp and European Lobster to generate prototype cultivated crustacean meat products cost effectively.

As the global demand for high quality protein grows, more sustainable sources need to be identified. Cultivated meat is an exciting solution that has potential to revolutionise the way that meat is produced. It focuses on developing meat without a need for conventional agriculture and animal sacrifice and has potential to have a positive impact on the environment and to improve biodiversity. Across the globe, cultivated meat and the associated technology-driven companies are emerging as this sector matures and increasingly provides a compelling opportunity. Roslin Technologies (RT) is a Scottish biotech company bringing a suite of revolutionary animal cell products to the global cultivated meat sector. These products include induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) that have infinite self-renewal properties and, at laboratory scale, are capable of directed differentiation to the key cell types needed for cultivated meat generation (muscle/fat). RT's pig iPSC lines are already being used by cultivated meat companies across the world to develop prototypes. RT is currently expanding its species platform by deriving cell lines from cattle and sheep for cultivated meat development. RT now needs to develop innovative technologies to enable its customers to generate muscle and fat cell types at scale. The vision here is to move RT's offering to this next stage by selecting cell lines and developing new protocols to support efficient cell differentiation at an industry-relevant scale. Here, RT will work closely with scientists at Roslin Institute (RI), who will bring extensive expertise/capabilities in livestock stem cell biology and characterisation to develop robust protocols for efficient generation of muscle and fat ingredients for cultivated beef. This team will work with the Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre's equipment facility FlexBio (Heriot-Watt University) to de-risk scale-up of the downstream industrial biotechnology processes as applied to the cell lines and protocols derived in this project. The project builds on previous advances made by RT in generating proprietary animal stem cells for the cultivated meat sector and will combine these with deep scientific expertise available at RI and FlexBio to enable RT to build its commercial package for its customers by providing end-to-end materials/protocols that will enable them to generate muscle and fat at scale for cultivated meat production. This project will help accelerate the global sector to commercial reality by applying deep knowledge garnered on bona-fide bovine muscle and fat progenitor cells to support differentiation of animal stem cells that have infinite self-renewing capacity.

Roslin Technologies Limited (RTL) is a cutting-edge biotech company that aims to transform science innovations to provide solutions to global challenges in agriculture and animal health. The company, a joint venture between the University of Edinburgh and two investment partners with strong global networks, is based in the Midlothian Science Zone, one of the largest animal science innovation hubs in the world. This locale ensures that RTL is excellently placed to exploit ground-breaking innovations in the fields of animal science and biotechnology. The company's modus operandi is to translate ground-breaking innovations from academia to develop practical solutions that help address the increasing global protein gap and, in so doing, deliver products and services that support more sustainable food production. With this in mind, the company has three main technological platforms: Innovative Breeding Programmes, Animal Health Solutions and Animal Cells. The latter encompasses state-of-the-art technologies specialising in extracting, bio-banking, developing and cultivating animal stem cells. A key strand of this platform is the generation of animal induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. These are special types of cells, generated from mature cells, that have capacity for immortality and the ability to be differentiated into an array of target cell types. As such, iPS cells can be exploited for a wide range of purposes, including stem cell therapies and, now, cultured meat production. RTL's fully-validated, IP-protected iPS cell lines for livestock and companion animals have been shown to be capable of differentiation into a range of key cell types (muscle, fat, bone, cartilage), providing evidence of their potential commercial application. In particular, the livestock iPS cell lines show considerable promise to supply a much-needed resource for the rapidly-growing global Cellular Agriculture sector. Successful early work has been completed at laboratory scale and the company now has several commercial Cellular Agriculture clients identified, some of whom are already developing RTL's pig iPS cell lines into cultured meat prototypes. RTL is now poised to significantly scale up this iPS cell platform, including widening its animal species offering and tackling key bottleneck steps for the sector, such as reproducible culture scale-up for cost-effective cultured meat generation. This project supports the key steps in taking RTL's iPS cell platform technologies to the next stage in which the company will be poised to service the growing number of international cultured meat companies that have been launched in the flourishing Cellular Agriculture sector in the last 2-3 years.

The market for cultured meat is expanding rapidly, opening huge opportunities for businesses in this sector. Roslin Technologies' vision is to serve cultured meat companies globally by providing them with key cellular and media tools to cost-effectively develop their own food products. Roslin Technologies has already developed innovative tools that serve companies working on cultured pork products and, in this project, plans to work with Singaporean company, Shiok Meats, a world leader in the generation of cultured shrimp meat. Here, the two companies have come together to develop cultured meat from lobster, a key global market that is set to benefit widely from the provision of cultured meat products. This project will blend recent advances in crustacean cell biology made by Shiok Meats with those in animal stem cell biology made by Roslin Technologies to generate novel cell lines from the European Lobster for the development of edible crustacean meat products.