Building muscle in the lab
Published in Bioprinting.
A new method allows large quantities of muscle stem cells to be safely obtained in cell culture. This provides a potential for treating patients with muscle diseases – and for those who would like to eat meat, but don’t want to kill animals.
ETH Zurich Professor Ori Bar-Nur and his team grow muscle cells in the laboratory. In this case, they are mouse cells, but the researchers are also interested in human and cow cells. Promising applications resonate with both: human muscle tissue cultured in the lab could be used in surgery, while human muscle stem cells could help people with muscle diseases; meanwhile, lab-grown cow muscle tissue could revolutionise the meat industry by enabling the production of meat with no need to slaughter animals.
https://www.myscience.ch/en/news/2023/building_muscle_in_the_lab-2023-ethz