Making Sense of Making Meat: Key Moments in the First 20 Years of Tissue Engineering Muscle to Make Food

Neil Stephens; Alexandra E. Sexton; Clemens Driessen

doi:10.3389/fsufs.2019.00045

Making Sense of Making Meat: Key Moments in the First 20 Years of Tissue Engineering Muscle to Make Food

Neil Stephens^*, Alexandra E. Sexton, Clemens Driessen

^*Corresponding author for this work

Social Policy

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

50 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Cultured/clean/cell-based meat (CM) now has a near two decade history of laboratory research, commencing with the early NASA-funded work at Touro College and the bioarts practice of the Tissue Culture and Art project. Across this period the field, or as it is now more commonly termed, the “space,” has developed significantly while promoting different visions for what CM is and can do, and the best mechanisms for delivery. Here we both analyse and critically engage with this near-twenty year period as a productive provocation to those engaged with CM, or considering becoming so. This paper is not a history of the field, and does not offer a comprehensive timeline. Instead it identifies significant activities, transitions, and moments in which key meanings and practices have taken form or exerted influence. We do this through analyzing two related themes: the CM “institutional context” and the CM “interpretative package.” The former, the institutional context, refers to events and infrastructures that have come into being to support and shape the CM field, including university activities, conferences, third sector groups, various potential funding mechanisms, and the establishment of a start-up sector. The latter, the interpretative package, refers to the constellation of factors that shape or assert how CM should be understood, including the various names used to describe it, accounts of what it will achieve, and most recently, the emergent regulatory discussions that frame its legal standing. Across the paper we argue it is productive to think of the CM community in terms of a first and second wave. The first wave was more university-based and broadly covers the period from the millennium until around the 2013 cultured burger event. The second wave saw the increasing prevalence of a start-up culture and the circuits of venture capital interest that support it. Through this analysis we seek to provoke further reflection upon how the CM community has come to be as it is, and how this could develop in the future.

Original language	English
Article number	45
Journal	Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems
Volume	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2019.00045
Publication status	Published - 10 Jul 2019

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
NS work was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council [RES-349-25-0001], the Seventh Framework Programme [288971], a Wellcome Trust small grant [WT096541MA], a Centre for Society and Genomics Visiting Scholarship (15/5/11-15/7/11), and a Wellcome Trust Research Fellowship [WT208198/Z/17/Z]. AS research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number ES/J500057/1], and a number of small grants for fieldwork including the SSPP Small Grant for Postgraduate Research from King’s College London, a Small Grant from the Department of Geography (King’s College London), and a KCL Mary Clark Travel Bursary. The writing of the paper was supported by the Wellcome Trust, Our Planet Our Health (Livestock, Environment and People–LEAP) [award number 205212/Z/16/Z]. CD work has been funded by the project Ethical room for maneuver in livestock farming funded by The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) project # 253-20-013 and a grant from the Ministry of Economic Affairs for the report (Van der Weele and Driessen, 2013) Burgers over Kweekvlees.

Funding Information:
Funding. NS work was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council [RES-349-25-0001], the Seventh Framework Programme [288971], a Wellcome Trust small grant [WT096541MA], a Centre for Society and Genomics Visiting Scholarship (15/5/11-15/7/11), and a Wellcome Trust Research Fellowship [WT208198/Z/17/Z]. AS research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number ES/J500057/1], and a number of small grants for fieldwork including the SSPP Small Grant for Postgraduate Research from King's College London, a Small Grant from the Department of Geography (King's College London), and a KCL Mary Clark Travel Bursary. The writing of the paper was supported by the Wellcome Trust, Our Planet Our Health (Livestock, Environment and People?LEAP) [award number 205212/Z/16/Z]. CD work has been funded by the project Ethical room for maneuver in livestock farming funded by The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) project # 253-20-013 and a grant from the Ministry of Economic Affairs for the report (Van der Weele and Driessen, 2013) Burgers over Kweekvlees.

Funding Information:
Before the first wave of collective efforts to produce CM there were a small number of pioneers conducting laboratory work around the turn of the millennium. Two projects in particular—one in bio-arts and one funded by NASA—were both independently producing tissue around 2000-2001. One of these was conducted by Benjaminson et al. (2002). Morris Benjaminson first became aware of the concept in the mid-90s from his cousin, a chief food inspector at the New York City Department of Health. Having an existing track record of securing funding from NASA, he later submitted an application to their Small Business Innovative Research programme, which NASA funded. During the project the team cultivated goldfish explants to increase their size. It was inspected, smelt and described as “acceptable as food” (Benjaminson et al., 2002 p. 885). Importantly, the focus of this work was entirely to develop a muscle protein production system to support meat production during long-term space travel. They subsequently also grew chicken muscle (Wolfson, 2002), but NASA chose not to fund a subsequent research application as long-term space flight was a low priority.

Publisher Copyright:
© Copyright © 2019 Stephens, Sexton and Driessen.

Keywords

cell-based meat
clean meat
cultured meat
in vitro meat
naming
sense-making
social science

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Global and Planetary Change
Food Science
Ecology
Agronomy and Crop Science
Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law
Horticulture

Access to Document

10.3389/fsufs.2019.00045

Cite this

@article{b01a042237de47c8a9ed5923f81fa485,

title = "Making Sense of Making Meat: Key Moments in the First 20 Years of Tissue Engineering Muscle to Make Food",

abstract = "Cultured/clean/cell-based meat (CM) now has a near two decade history of laboratory research, commencing with the early NASA-funded work at Touro College and the bioarts practice of the Tissue Culture and Art project. Across this period the field, or as it is now more commonly termed, the “space,” has developed significantly while promoting different visions for what CM is and can do, and the best mechanisms for delivery. Here we both analyse and critically engage with this near-twenty year period as a productive provocation to those engaged with CM, or considering becoming so. This paper is not a history of the field, and does not offer a comprehensive timeline. Instead it identifies significant activities, transitions, and moments in which key meanings and practices have taken form or exerted influence. We do this through analyzing two related themes: the CM “institutional context” and the CM “interpretative package.” The former, the institutional context, refers to events and infrastructures that have come into being to support and shape the CM field, including university activities, conferences, third sector groups, various potential funding mechanisms, and the establishment of a start-up sector. The latter, the interpretative package, refers to the constellation of factors that shape or assert how CM should be understood, including the various names used to describe it, accounts of what it will achieve, and most recently, the emergent regulatory discussions that frame its legal standing. Across the paper we argue it is productive to think of the CM community in terms of a first and second wave. The first wave was more university-based and broadly covers the period from the millennium until around the 2013 cultured burger event. The second wave saw the increasing prevalence of a start-up culture and the circuits of venture capital interest that support it. Through this analysis we seek to provoke further reflection upon how the CM community has come to be as it is, and how this could develop in the future.",

keywords = "cell-based meat, clean meat, cultured meat, in vitro meat, naming, sense-making, social science",

author = "Neil Stephens and Sexton, {Alexandra E.} and Clemens Driessen",

note = "Funding Information: NS work was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council [RES-349-25-0001], the Seventh Framework Programme [288971], a Wellcome Trust small grant [WT096541MA], a Centre for Society and Genomics Visiting Scholarship (15/5/11-15/7/11), and a Wellcome Trust Research Fellowship [WT208198/Z/17/Z]. AS research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number ES/J500057/1], and a number of small grants for fieldwork including the SSPP Small Grant for Postgraduate Research from King{\textquoteright}s College London, a Small Grant from the Department of Geography (King{\textquoteright}s College London), and a KCL Mary Clark Travel Bursary. The writing of the paper was supported by the Wellcome Trust, Our Planet Our Health (Livestock, Environment and People–LEAP) [award number 205212/Z/16/Z]. CD work has been funded by the project Ethical room for maneuver in livestock farming funded by The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) project # 253-20-013 and a grant from the Ministry of Economic Affairs for the report (Van der Weele and Driessen, 2013) Burgers over Kweekvlees. Funding Information: Funding. NS work was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council [RES-349-25-0001], the Seventh Framework Programme [288971], a Wellcome Trust small grant [WT096541MA], a Centre for Society and Genomics Visiting Scholarship (15/5/11-15/7/11), and a Wellcome Trust Research Fellowship [WT208198/Z/17/Z]. AS research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number ES/J500057/1], and a number of small grants for fieldwork including the SSPP Small Grant for Postgraduate Research from King's College London, a Small Grant from the Department of Geography (King's College London), and a KCL Mary Clark Travel Bursary. The writing of the paper was supported by the Wellcome Trust, Our Planet Our Health (Livestock, Environment and People?LEAP) [award number 205212/Z/16/Z]. CD work has been funded by the project Ethical room for maneuver in livestock farming funded by The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) project # 253-20-013 and a grant from the Ministry of Economic Affairs for the report (Van der Weele and Driessen, 2013) Burgers over Kweekvlees. Funding Information: Before the first wave of collective efforts to produce CM there were a small number of pioneers conducting laboratory work around the turn of the millennium. Two projects in particular—one in bio-arts and one funded by NASA—were both independently producing tissue around 2000-2001. One of these was conducted by Benjaminson et al. (2002). Morris Benjaminson first became aware of the concept in the mid-90s from his cousin, a chief food inspector at the New York City Department of Health. Having an existing track record of securing funding from NASA, he later submitted an application to their Small Business Innovative Research programme, which NASA funded. During the project the team cultivated goldfish explants to increase their size. It was inspected, smelt and described as “acceptable as food” (Benjaminson et al., 2002 p. 885). Importantly, the focus of this work was entirely to develop a muscle protein production system to support meat production during long-term space travel. They subsequently also grew chicken muscle (Wolfson, 2002), but NASA chose not to fund a subsequent research application as long-term space flight was a low priority. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} Copyright {\textcopyright} 2019 Stephens, Sexton and Driessen.",

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doi = "10.3389/fsufs.2019.00045",

language = "English",

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AU - Stephens, Neil

AU - Sexton, Alexandra E.

AU - Driessen, Clemens

N1 - Funding Information: NS work was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council [RES-349-25-0001], the Seventh Framework Programme [288971], a Wellcome Trust small grant [WT096541MA], a Centre for Society and Genomics Visiting Scholarship (15/5/11-15/7/11), and a Wellcome Trust Research Fellowship [WT208198/Z/17/Z]. AS research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number ES/J500057/1], and a number of small grants for fieldwork including the SSPP Small Grant for Postgraduate Research from King’s College London, a Small Grant from the Department of Geography (King’s College London), and a KCL Mary Clark Travel Bursary. The writing of the paper was supported by the Wellcome Trust, Our Planet Our Health (Livestock, Environment and People–LEAP) [award number 205212/Z/16/Z]. CD work has been funded by the project Ethical room for maneuver in livestock farming funded by The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) project # 253-20-013 and a grant from the Ministry of Economic Affairs for the report (Van der Weele and Driessen, 2013) Burgers over Kweekvlees. Funding Information: Funding. NS work was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council [RES-349-25-0001], the Seventh Framework Programme [288971], a Wellcome Trust small grant [WT096541MA], a Centre for Society and Genomics Visiting Scholarship (15/5/11-15/7/11), and a Wellcome Trust Research Fellowship [WT208198/Z/17/Z]. AS research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number ES/J500057/1], and a number of small grants for fieldwork including the SSPP Small Grant for Postgraduate Research from King's College London, a Small Grant from the Department of Geography (King's College London), and a KCL Mary Clark Travel Bursary. The writing of the paper was supported by the Wellcome Trust, Our Planet Our Health (Livestock, Environment and People?LEAP) [award number 205212/Z/16/Z]. CD work has been funded by the project Ethical room for maneuver in livestock farming funded by The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) project # 253-20-013 and a grant from the Ministry of Economic Affairs for the report (Van der Weele and Driessen, 2013) Burgers over Kweekvlees. Funding Information: Before the first wave of collective efforts to produce CM there were a small number of pioneers conducting laboratory work around the turn of the millennium. Two projects in particular—one in bio-arts and one funded by NASA—were both independently producing tissue around 2000-2001. One of these was conducted by Benjaminson et al. (2002). Morris Benjaminson first became aware of the concept in the mid-90s from his cousin, a chief food inspector at the New York City Department of Health. Having an existing track record of securing funding from NASA, he later submitted an application to their Small Business Innovative Research programme, which NASA funded. During the project the team cultivated goldfish explants to increase their size. It was inspected, smelt and described as “acceptable as food” (Benjaminson et al., 2002 p. 885). Importantly, the focus of this work was entirely to develop a muscle protein production system to support meat production during long-term space travel. They subsequently also grew chicken muscle (Wolfson, 2002), but NASA chose not to fund a subsequent research application as long-term space flight was a low priority. Publisher Copyright: © Copyright © 2019 Stephens, Sexton and Driessen.

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Making Sense of Making Meat: Key Moments in the First 20 Years of Tissue Engineering Muscle to Make Food

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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