A $325,000 project is aiming to test the viability of test tube meat by producing the first genetically engineered burger.
The New York Times reported that Dutch scientist Mark Post, who is with the Maastricht University in the Netherlands, has attempted creating a hamburger entirely from billions of stem cells.
The project got $325,000 from an anonymous donor, he told the paper. He ate the synthetic tissue and said the burger “tastes reasonably good.”
“Let’s make a proof of concept, and change the discussion from ‘this is never going to work’ to, ‘well, we actually showed that it works, but now we need to get funding and work on it,’” he said last fall, according to the paper.
In 2011, he told ABC News that meat consumption around the world will likely double, possibly making genetically engineered meats a viable source of protein.
“In my mind, meat consumption is here to stay, and if you want to do that at a higher efficiency than what is currently done by cows and pigs, you have to explore the possibility of doing that in the lab,” Post told the broadcaster.
Friends Read Free