MRCRM seminar series - May 2022

We are happy announce Professor Shoji Takeuchi as the speaker at the joint MRCRM-TOR seminar on May 19!

Title: From lab to fork: 3D tissue engineering for meat production.

Abstract: Research on "cultured meat," as typified by cultured hamburgers and chicken nuggets, has been studied world wide. These were made from randomly arranged muscle cells, so-called "minced meat." 

In contrast, our research group has been working on the in vitro fabrication of 3D structures of muscle tissue with the goal of realizing steak meat with its original texture. Bovine muscle tissue in the shape of a dice steak (1.0 cm x 0.8 cm x 0.7 cm) was prepared by forming a gel containing myoblasts grown from bovine muscle satellite cells into a sheet shape, stacking the sheet with both ends fixed to anchors, and culturing it.

Myofibers in the tissue showed sarcomere-like structures stained with anti-α-actinin antibodies, suggesting that the myofibers were not just an aggregate of myoblasts, but that myoblasts fused with each other and underwent differentiation. In addition to these results, the latest developments will be presented in this talk.

About the speaker: Dr. Takeuchi is Professor and Director of the Center for International Research on Integrative Biomedical Systems (CIBiS), Institute of Industrial Science (IIS) at the University of Tokyo, with research interests in 3D tissue fabrication, implantable devices, artificial cells and biohybrid MEMS. His track record is impressive. 

The event will be digital at Microsoft Teams, but we encourage all interested to watch the seminar together in the auditorium at Armauer Hansens hus for disussions and interactions after the meeting. Coffee and refreshments will be served.