You Can Be Anything › All careers › Space & Emerging Fields
Lab-Grown Meat Scientist
Develops cultured meat by growing animal cells in a lab — without raising or slaughtering animals.
Did you know?
The first lab-grown burger, tasted on live TV in London in 2013, cost over $325,000 and took two years to make.
How subjects help
- Biology: Grow muscle and fat cells from an animal in a nutrient broth instead of raising the animal.
- Chemistry: Work out the mix of nutrients and growth signals that cells need to multiply.
- Food Science: Make lab grown meat taste, smell and chew like the real thing and keep it safe to eat.
- Engineering: Design big tanks for growing cells, which is still very hard to do at large scale.
A famous name
Mark Post: Dutch scientist who made the first lab-grown beef burger, cooked and eaten in London in 2013.
Try it yourself: Pick the best growing conditions
- Which conditions gave the most growth?
- Why might "hot" be worse than "warm"?
- Which one thing would you change next to see if growth improves? Keep everything else the same.
- Why does keeping things clean matter so much when you grow something on purpose?
Mushroom growers and cell-growing scientists test conditions one at a time and keep everything spotless, so only what they want can grow.
Also try: Run a fair test with sugar.
Known for it in
Singapore, USA, Israel, Netherlands, Japan