Blood, meat, and upscaling tissue engineering: Promises, anticipated markets, and performativity in the biomedical and agri-food sectors

Abstract

Tissue engineering is a set of biomedical technologies, including stem cell science, which seek to grow biological tissue for a diversity of applications. In this paper, we explore two emergent tissue engineering technologies that seek to cause a step change in the upscaling capacity of cell growth: cultured blood and cultured meat. Cultured blood technology seeks to replace blood transfusion with a safe and affordable bioengineered replacement. Cultured meat technology seeks to replace livestock-based food production with meat produced in a bioreactor. Importantly, cultured meat technology straddles the industrial contexts of biomedicine and agrifood. In this paper, we articulate (i) the shared and divergent promissory trajectories of the two technologies and (ii) the anticipated market, consumer, and regulatory contexts of each. Our analysis concludes by discussing how the sectoral ontologies of biomedicine and agri-food impact the performative capacity of each technology's promissory trajectory.

Bringing cultured meat to market: Technical, socio-political, and regulatory challenges in cellular agriculture

“…Numerous narratives in favour of cultured meat and other alternative proteins have emphasised the ability for these novel foods to ‘disrupt’, and thus overcome, the negative impacts associated with conventional livestock production. However, cultured meat has to date existed predominantly in promissory narratives rather than in tangible, material forms ( Jönsson, 2016 ; Stephens & Ruivenkamp, 2016 ; Stephens, King, & Lyall, 2018 ). The abundance of this aspiration rhetoric (fuelled largely by corporate and media actors) coupled with the relative lack of scientific assessments, such as Life Cycle Assessments, has made for an ambiguous and at-times prematurely optimistic discourse around cultured meat.…”

Plant-based and cell-based approaches to meat production

“…Scaffold materials may fall under FDA food additive provisions 31 . Even with a joint effort, it will be important to utilize current systems but also to implement new regulation procedures as the technology continues to advance 32,33 . Further complication could arise if companies intend to sell products containing genetically modified (GM) cells.…”

What's in a name: are cultured red blood cells ‘natural’?

“…In this respect, our research shares some parallels with the development of ‘cultured meat’ which has been described as an ‘as‐yet undefined ontological object’ (Stephens : 400, see also Jönsson , Stephens et al . in press).…”