The EPFL Cultivated Meat has the objective of producing meat using cellular cultivation.

The very basic idea is the following: we take stem cells from a cow like a seed, cultivate them in a bioreactor that acts like a greenhouse, to finally produce muscular tissue we can eat.

Meat tastes good! However, conventional meat comes with three main problems. First, meat is the leading cause of environmental impact in our alimentation (source). Secondly, it endangers public health because massive usage of antibiotics on livestock and their insalubrious environment lead to the development of antimicrobial resistant bacteria (source) and zoonoses (source). Finally, farm animals endure unimaginable fear, pain, suffering, and inhumane slaughter, often remaining conscious and subjected to painful mutilations without relief (source).

We thus believe that reducing conventional meat must be one of humanity’s first priority. Many alternatives are readily available but one remains to be developed and added in our supermarkets: cultivated meat, the only alternative that really replicates the experience of meat. But many challenges lie ahead: the meat culture needs a lot of water and electricity to be produced (source) and it requires the use of animal-free and edible components.

This technology provides us with greater freedom for innovation. By cultivating meat, we can more easily adapt its nutritional composition to create various flavours, for example by adjusting the lipidic composition. This allows us to make cultivated meat even tastier or healthier than conventional meat.

This project is highly pluridisciplinary, we are happy to welcome students from every section. If you want to transform the future of food with sustainability in mind, we encourage you to contact us via the info below.