Maastricht University starts new research line on cellular agriculture
Thanks to a strong financial impulse from the National Growth Fund, Maastricht University, as one of the partners in a national consortium, is starting a new line of research in the field of cellular agriculture. This is technology where animal products such as meat and milk proteins can be produced directly from animal and microbial cells. The Maastricht line will be started by scientists from MERLN, a medical research institute conducting groundbreaking research into regenerative medicine.
Stimulus for education and research
The Maastricht scientists Lorenzo Moroni and Matthew Baker are hugely enthusiastic. “This financial boost is a great opportunity for our institute, which has built a reputation on Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine technologies. Besides education and research in the field of sustainable ageing, we can now also use the latest techniques in the field of sustainable food production. We are therefore working closely with Wageningen University & Research and TU Delft on both precision fermentation and cultured meat.
Cellular Agriculture
All activities of the consortium aim to give the Dutch cellular agriculture (CA) ecosystem a major boost over the next eight years, among other things by developing fundamental and applied CA knowledge, making scale-up facilities available for CA companies and training sufficiently qualified CA staff. This will make the Netherlands more attractive as a business location for companies in the CA sector.
The Dutch government has announced that it is investing 60 million in such research from the National Growth Fund. Supplemented by 25 million in additional co-financing, it is the world's largest ever financial support by a national government for cellular agriculture.
Implementation of the plan will begin under the coordination of the Cellular Agriculture Netherlands Foundation, in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality.
Read the full message (in Dutch) from the Cellular Agriculture Netherlands Foundation.
About the national Growth Fund
With the National Growth Fund, the government will allocate € 20 billion over the next five years for project investments in three areas with the most potential for structural and sustainable economic growth. For more information click here
About Cellular Agriculture Netherlands
The Cellular Agriculture Netherlands Foundation is building a Dutch community of organizations that aim to build a healthy, sustainable sector around cellular agriculture, inside and outside the Netherlands. Participants include universities, startups, impact/sustainability organizations, value chain partners and biotech accelerators. For more information click here,