DawnWatch: Petri dish certified -- Los Angeles Times article 5/22/06

[Guest guest]

The Monday, May 22, Los Angeles Times has a fascinating article headed, " Petri

dish certified; Growing meat in a lab sounds far-fetched, but some scientists

see it as an inevitable evolution. Whether it's practical remains to be seen. "

(Page F3)

 

It opens:

 

" The new good-for-you meat won't be pork or grass-fed beef, and it won't be

made of soy. If the efforts of a few future-minded scientists succeed, it will

taste and look like old-fashioned meat -- only it'll be raised in a lab, not on

a farm.

 

Several groups of scientists are cultivating edible meat in dishes from animal

muscle cells. The technology, which involves choosing the right starter cells,

stimulating and fine-tuning their growth for taste, texture and nutrients, has

a way -- a long way -- to go before meat could hit supermarkets. But these

researchers insist it will be a more efficient way to produce a staple of the

American diet -- and will make meat healthier to boot.

 

" Growing lab meat, they say, will mean scientists can control levels and types

of fats (such as omega 3 fatty acids), protein and other substances and produce

a product less likely to be contaminated with such food-poisoning culprits as

E. coli.

 

" 'Suddenly a McDonald's breakfast sausage patty could protect you from heart

disease instead of giving you heart disease,' says Robert Lawrence, director of

the Center for a Livable Future at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at

Johns Hopkins University.

 

We are given an idea of what would be involved:

 

" To culture meat, scientists cut a small piece of muscle from a pig or fish, or

use a few cells cultured in a lab. (Popular starters include embryonic

myoblasts, which are cells destined to become muscle cells, or adult muscle

'satellite' cells, which help muscle recover from injuries.) The cells are

placed in a dish or bioreactor then 'fed' with a fluid containing a combination

of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, sugars, salts and growth factors.

 

" Early success came in 2002, when Touro College biology professor Morris

Benjaminson reported growing fish meat in the lab. He and his colleagues

cultured the flesh using pieces of muscle tissue (about 20 square centimeters)

harvested from anesthetized, living goldfish.

 

" The tissues were doused with fibroblasts (cells that form connective tissue),

incubated and nourished with either fetal cow serum, maitake or shiitake

mushroom extract or fish meal.

 

" Within a week, the fish muscles increased up to 89% in size.

 

" Collaborator James Gilchriest, also a researcher at Touro, marinated a batch

of the cultured fish -- which the researchers said 'resembled fresh fish

fillets' -- in olive oil, lemon and garlic before breading and deep-frying

them.

 

The full article is available on line at:

http://www.latimes.com/features/printedition/health/la-he-meatlab22may22,1,24481\

64.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-health or http://tinyurl.com/lx9nh

 

Focusing on health, it make no mention of animal protection issues but opens

the door for letters to the editor against the cruelty of factory farming and

slaughterhouses. A great source of information on factory farming is

www.FactoryFarming.com

The Los Angeles Times takes letters at letters

 

Always include your full name, address, and daytime phone number when sending a

letter to the editor. Shorter letters are more likely to be published.

 

Yours and the animals',

Karen Dawn

 

(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the

media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You

can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. To

, go to

http://www.dawnwatch.com/cgi-bin/dada/dawnwatch_.cgi If you forward

or reprint DawnWatch alerts, please do so unedited -- leave DawnWatch in the

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" To be nobody-but-myself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to

make me everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle which any human being

can fight, and never stop fighting. " -e.e. cummings-