This isn't a healthcare issue, but it is an example of how the things we're learning about life at the nano and bio scales have a way of changing our basic assumptions -- and maybe creep us out a bit.
In the current issue of Tissue Engineering, a team of scientists discusses culturing animal muscle cells in bulk for human consumption in an article titled In Vitro-Cultured Meat Production [PDF]. After considering embryonic stem cells (although from cows, pigs and chickens, not humans -- I hope), the authors posit that "the most practical cell source for cultured meat is probably embryonic myoblasts or postnatal/posthatch skeletal muscle cells called satellite cells."
According to team member Jason Matheny, a University of Maryland doctoral student quoted in a UMD press release about the idea:
There would be a lot of benefits from cultured meat. For one thing, you could control the nutrients. For example, most meats are high in the fatty acid Omega 6, which can cause high cholesterol and other health problems. With in vitro meat, you could replace that with Omega 3, which is a healthy fat.
Cultured meat could also reduce the pollution that results from raising livestock, and you wouldn't need the drugs that are used on animals raised for meat.
Excited about the prospect, Matheny and other scientists have even started a non-profit called New Harvest to develop the idea.
Nobody has ever tasted cultured meat, but Australian scientist/artists Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr have grown tissues like the layer of bone tissue differentiated from pig’s bone marrow stem cells pictured at right (click to enlarge) for an art project called Growing Semi-Living Sculptures: The Tissue Culture & Art Project. [PDF]
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