Seaweed-Based Growth Media Could Replace Traditional Cell Culture Media in Cultivated Meat Production
A new research project led by James Cook University (JCU) and the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) is investigating the use of seaweed as a potential alternative to traditional cell culture media in the production of cultivated meat and seafood. This initiative seeks to address the challenges of sustainability, cost, and ethics in cellular agriculture by utilizing seaweed’s abundance and fast-growing nature. Turning seaweed into meat The project, named SeaToMeat – Optimizing Seaweed Proteins to Cultivate Meat, focuses on converting seaweed proteins into hydrolysates, which are mixtures of amino acids, small proteins, and bioactive compounds. Hydrolysates are formed when larger proteins are broken down into smaller components. These seaweed-derived hydrolysates could serve as a low-cost and sustainable alternative to the fetal bovine serum traditionally used …