Bioprocess development for manufacturing fish cells for cultivated fish

Project ID: 2228cd1263 (You will need this ID for your application)

Research Theme: Manufacturing The Future

UCL Lead department: Biochemical Engineering

Department Website

Lead Supervisor: Mariana Petronela Hanga

Project Summary:

There is an increased need for sustainable, protein rich food sources to support the rapidly growing population. One such source is seafood which represents ~20% of the global protein consumption. The demand for seafood has doubled in the past 50 years leading to aquaculture and other intensive fishing practices which have severely depleted the global fish stocks with less than 10% available as fish populations are being fished more rapidly then they can replenish. Global warming has also impacted the marine ecosystem by disrupting the ocean’s ecology and chemistry and thus >33% of marine species are facing extinction. Thus the seafood source is threatened with significant concerns for food security. One solution could be cultivated fish which is genuine fish meat that is produced under controlled conditions using cell culture. Currently no cultivated fish products are commercially available or close to reaching the market. Also very little research is available, even less so in the bioprocess development area and the scalability of fish cell cultures.

Project aim and objectives: This project aims to address this gap by designing and developing a scalable bioprocess for manufacturing fish muscle cells for cultivated meat with strategies to enhance cell yield and differentiation efficiencies. Immortalised fish cells from mackerel will be purchased from the Tufts cell line repository. The basic culture parameters (e.g. cell seeding density for monolayer, media formulations, temperature, pH) will be based on the protocols accompanying the cells.

Project objectives include: 1) Set-up working cell banks and cell characterisation (e.g. growth kinetics, differentiation); 2) Monolayer protocol translation to spinner flasks with investigations into process parameters (e.g. cell densities, microcarrier/aggregate culture, feeding regimes, agitation speed, mixing, aeration etc) and their effect on cell yield during the proliferation and differentiation stages; 3) Scale-up of developed proliferation-differentiation bioprocess to litre scale.