Scientists create the world's largest lab-grown chicken nugget, complete with artificial veins

Scientists have grown a nugget-sized piece of chicken using a new method that can deliver nutrients and oxygen to artificial tissues, marking a major breakthrough in cultured meat.

Scientists have grown a nugget-sized piece of chicken using a new method that can deliver nutrients and oxygen to artificial tissues, marking a major breakthrough in cultured meat.

While labs have been producing lifelike tissues for more than a decade, previous methods only made small, scattered cell balls less than 1 millimeter thick, or about 0.04 inches. It was a challenge to hold the cell groupings together in a way that more closely mimicked the texture of muscle, and the current generation of lab-grown meats are often tiny pieces clumped together around an edible scaffolding.

However, a team of researchers in Japan have achieved new lengths, growing a single, square piece of chicken 2.7 inches (7 centimeters) wide and 0.7 inches (2 centimeters) thick with a new lab tool, according to a paper published Wednesday in the journal Trends in Biotechnology. Weighing in at about a third of an ounce, the artificial chicken muscle is a small bite, but is believed to be the world’s largest chunk of lab-grown meat.

The scientists developed a bioreactor that mimicked a circulatory system, using 50 hollow fibers acting like veins to distribute nutrients and oxygen to the meat, keeping cells alive and guiding them to grow in the specified directions.

The bioreactor delivered nutrients and oxygen through the tissue using tiny, precision-laid hollow fibers, using a method that, for the first time, could sustain growth across relatively long cellular distances.