A LUMP of laboratory-grown meat is being touted as the largest steak yet produced without slaughtering a living animal.

The company involved, MeaTech, described the 3.67 oz (104-gram) 'cultured' steak, 3D-printed using lab-cultivated living muscle and fat cells as an 'important milestone' toward the goal of scaled commercial production of such alternative meats.

The cells used in making the steak were produced by isolating bovine stem cells from tissue samples and multiplying them. Upon reaching sufficient cellular mass, these stem cells were formulated into bio-inks compatible with MeaTech’s 3D bio-printer. The bio-inks were then printed from a digital design file of a steak structure, then placed in an incubator to mature, as the printed stem cells differentiated into fat and muscle cells to form the 'steak'.

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Rather than using the soy or pea protein typically used in plant-based meat alternatives, MeaTech’s goal is to develop a true replacement for conventional steak that maximizes cell-based content rather than non-meat ingredients – and now it plans to continue improving upon its bio-printing and cultivation technologies to generate cultivated meat that better mirrors the key characteristics of farm-raised, premium steak.

"By bio-printing a 3.67 oz steak, comprised of real muscle and fat cells, MeaTech has both validated their core technologies and placed themselves at the forefront of the race to develop high-end, real cell-based cultivated premium meat products," said the publicly listed company, which currently has facilities in Israel and Belgium, where it is pursuing cultivated meat technology development for beef, pork, and chicken.

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