Lab-Grown Hamburger Due to Be Served Up This Year … For $330,000

[TECH NEWS]

The quest to grow meat in a lab rather than on an animal is due to reach its climax this fall, with the first-ever culture-dish hamburger served to a celebrity taster after a $330,000 development effort. Mark Post, a physiologist at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands, said the project is being funded by an anonymous investor who is interested in “life-transforming technologies” and believes lab-grown meat could revolutionize the food industry. “It’s a reputable source of money, I can tell you,” Post said today in Vancouver, Canada, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Post hopes the tasting will be a media event, with experimental chef Heston Blumenthal cooking the burger. The patty will be much like a regular quarter-pounder—but with one big difference: This one will be created by growing bovine stem cells in a vat, transforming them into thousands of thin layers of beef muscle cells, mincing them into tiny pieces, then combining the bits with lab-grown animal fat to form a lump of meat the size of a golf ball.

Feb. 19, 2012, MSNBC/Cosmic Log