Peter Thiel's New 3-D Printing Challenge: Meat
FotoosVanRobin via Wikimedia
Billionaire Peter Thiel would like to introduce you to the other,
other white meat. The investor’s philanthropic Thiel Foundation’s
Breakout Labs is offering up a six-figure grant (between $250,00 and
$350,000, though representatives wouldn’t say exactly) to a
Missouri-based startup called Modern Meadow that is flipping 3-D
bio-printing technology originally aimed at the regenerative medicine
market into a means to produce 3-D printed meat.
We've seen stuff kind of like this
before. The larger idea here is to use cultured cell media to create a
meat substitute that will satisfy the natural human desire for animal
protein minus the environmental (and ethical) impacts of industrial
scale farming. And by using 3-D printing technology, Modern Meadow might
even be able to make it look like the real thing, though we’re somewhat
skeptical even the best-looking faux fillet is going to stand up to the
real deal.
It’s also going to be expensive, though Thiel and Modern Meadow hope
that by developing a mature technology that can scale they will be able
to bring costs somewhat in line with average meat prices. They’ve got a
ways to go. Last time we visited the butcher meat was selling in bulk
and by the ounce. CNET reports that Modern Meadow’s short-term goal is to create a single small sliver of its meat substitute less than one inch long.
From popsci
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