Modern Meadows are 3D Printing meat

A start up creatively named Modern Meadow is attempting to apply advances in tissue engineering to create meat and leather without the need to raise, kill and transport animals. It sounds utterly insane, but the start up has received funding from some well known and respected sources, including  PayPal founder Peter Thiel.

Thiel thinks that 3D printed hamburgers could be pretty neat, and he bets that others will too. That’s why he recently donated anywhere between £160,000 to £220,000 to the effort. Some pretty serious scientists are at the heart of this, including:

• Andras Forgacs, Co-founder and Director of Organovo Inc the much heralded 'Tissue on Demand' company and who own patents in the area of tissue engineering. Forgacs is also a consultant with McKinsey with a focus on translational science, innovation, venture capital and biopharma. 
• Gabor Forgacs, Chief Scientific Officer of Organovo and an expert on Embryonic Biophysics and biological self-assembly.
• Francoise Marga, Lab Manager at the University of Missouri with deep expertise in bio-printing, and co-inventor on core bio-printing and meat printing patents. 
• Karoly Jakab, a biophysics post-doctoral researcher at the University of Missouri and U. of Virginia, with a focus on tissue self-assembly and bio-printing, Co-inventor with Marga on core bio-printing patents.

Phew! I cannot help but think that these talented scientists should stick to tissue engineering for human advancement, and not for making Hamburgers. I'm not sure the world is ready for a Dot Com Boom in 3D Printed Food Starters, but who knows, I've been wrong before.

Watch a video in which Andras Forgacs speaks about bioprinting at an Ideas Economy conference organized by The Economist.