Industrial Production of Bioactive Yeast Hydrolysates for the Cultivated Meat Industry

(i) Background and Context

Traditional approaches to producing meat are no longer fit for purpose. Cultivated meat is one promising solution to overcome the shortcomings of conventional meat farming, requiring only 46% of the energy, 5% of land and 22% of water use, which potentially results in a 92% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Cultivated meat is a nascent but rapidly growing industry that has several priority areas of development if the promise is to be delivered.

These include: (1) cell line development, (2) cell culture media, (3) bioreactor and bioprocessing, and (4) scaffolding and biomaterials. Production of cheap, scalable cell culture media (CCM) is a major bottleneck for all cultivated meat companies. Active research is now being undertaken to find new ingredients that are active, animal-free and economically viable, or to engineer new properties into pre-existing CCM components.

Hydrolysates are one such ingredient that will be the focus of this study. Hydrolysates are chemical or enzymatic digests of proteins rich in essential amino acids, bioactive peptides, vitamins, and lipids that are vital for cell growth. Previous works have demonstrated that yeast or plant hydrolysates could act as a supplement or even partial substitute for CCM.

(ii) Aim and Objectives

The overall aim of the project is to achieve an understanding of how upstream fermentation conditions affect biomass accumulation in order to establish optimum and robust operating conditions for industrially scalable production of hydrolysates used in cultivated meat production. The specific project objectives are as follows:

1. To replace conventional carbon sources by optimizing fermentation media containing more sustainable, industry-derived carbon sources.

2. To investigate the effect of fermentation parameters, and scale, on biomass accumulation of industrially relevant yeast.

3. To design a downstream processing pipeline for the preparation of yeast hydrolysate, from the cells produced, and assess its efficacy in mammalian cells relevant in the cultivated meat industry.

The project will progress through the following stages: (1) fermentation media optimization using alternative carbon sources, (2) optimization of process parameters at the pilot scale, (3) design of hydrolysate preparation pipeline, (4) use of processed hydrolysates in mammalian cell culture. (iii) Strategic Alignment

This project is aligned to EPSRC priorities in Manufacturing the Future and the Circular Economy. It is also aligned to the wider UKRI priorities for the development of skilled researchers and is within the remit of the CDT on 'Complex Biological Products Manufacture'. The project goals are also aligned with the research priorities of the UCL Department of Biochemical Engineering and related EPSRC grants (e.g.

Future Biomanufacturing Research Hub) and the commercial priorities of the collaborating company, Multus Biotechnology, which aims to be a supplier of key ingredients into the rapidly growing cellular agriculture sector.