• ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆
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    311 months ago

    The main issue is that the approach is too naive. Organic tissue has blood vessels that bring nutrients and oxygen to the cells while removing waste. This is what allows tissue to grow in three dimensions. When you just have a bunch of cells in a vat, then cells in the middle of the mass have no way to get nutrients or dispose of waste. The other big problem is the lack of an immune system, so any contaminant can quickly grow in this substrate.

    A better approach could be to try growing a more complex organic system that includes muscle tissue and maybe even organs such as heart and kidneys. I imagine this is a solvable problem, but it might not be the best approach.

    A different approach I saw was to modify plants to produce meat like tissue. People have been playing around with this approach as seen here. That seems a lot more promising to me because growing plants is a lot easier than trying to culture cells in a vat.