bioreactors is a decades old tech that keeps improving and nutrient baths help the cells grow like they would in a live animal.
en.wikipedia.org
A
bioreactor refers to any manufactured device or system that supports a biologically active environment.
[1] In one case, a bioreactor is a vessel in which a
chemical process is carried out which involves
organisms or
biochemically active
substances derived from such organisms. This process can either be
aerobic or
anaerobic. These bioreactors are commonly cylindrical, ranging in size from litres to cubic metres, and are often made of
stainless steel.[
citation needed] It may also refer to a device or system designed to grow
cells or
tissues in the context of
cell culture.
[2] These devices are being developed for use in
tissue engineering or
biochemical/
bioprocess engineering.[
citation needed]
General structure of a continuous stirred-tank type bioreactor
On the basis of mode of operation, a bioreactor may be classified as
batch,
fed batch or
continuous (e.g. a
continuous stirred-tank reactor model). An example of a continuous bioreactor is the
chemostat.[
citation needed]
Organisms or biochemically active substances growing in bioreactors may be submerged in liquid medium or may be anchored to the surface of a solid medium. Submerged cultures may be suspended or immobilized. Suspension bioreactors may support a wider variety of organisms, since special attachment surfaces are not needed, and can operate at a much larger scale than immobilized cultures. However, in a continuously operated process the organisms will be removed from the reactor with the effluent. Immobilization is a general term describing a wide variety of methods for cell or particle attachment or entrapment.
[3] It can be applied to basically all types of biocatalysis including enzymes, cellular organelles, animal and plant cells and organs.
[4][5] Immobilization is useful for continuously operated processes, since the organisms will not be removed with the reactor effluent, but is limited in scale because the microbes are only present on the surfaces of the vessel.
Large scale immobilized cell bioreactors are:
an old article:
JUNE 1, 2011
A handful of scientists aim to satisfy the world's growing appetite for steak without wrecking the planet. The first step: grab a petri dish
www.scientificamerican.com
snippet:
Cost is another barrier. The culture used to grow stem cells of any kind is very expensive. With currently available media, it might cost $50,000 to produce a pound of meat, according to Roelen, and
the most efficient nutrient bath is derived from fetal calf or horse serum taken from slaughtered animals. In recent years scientists have developed their own recipes for “chemically defined media” that include no animal products. By using recombinant-DNA technology,
they have also been able to get plant cells to produce animal proteins that could be used to grow the meat. But both these types of media are, for now, prohibitively expensive. An algae-based medium may eventually work best because algae can produce the proteins and amino acids necessary to sustain cell life, but that, too, is costly—at least for now.
