In recent years, Mosa Meat has made a couple of things clear: 1) They want to get as close to creating real meat without the cow as possible, and 2) They want to achieve this goal in the most humane, animal-free way.
They’ve documented their progress towards achieving both of these goals along the way, first by making news in 2016 with the announcement they’d figured out a method for cultivating meat without the use of FBS, or fetal bovine serum. Since that time, they’ve updated the world on their progress and even shared techniques for how they make “real meat” complete with cell-cultured fat and muscle fibers.
And this week, the company made news again with the publication of a paper on its method for achieving muscle differentiation through a process they describe as ‘serum-starvation.’ According to Mosa, it’s through the differentiating of cells into fibers that result in the structure and chew of meat, and it’s within the muscle fibers that the proteins and rich color of meat are produced.
The paper’s primary author, Tobias Messmer, describes how they focused on the proteins on the surface of cells to achieve this differentiation without FBS.
“By specifically activating these proteins (known as ‘receptors’), we are now able to recreate the same transition in the absence of any FBS.”
With the publication of this information, the company has essentially open-sourced the ideas behind achieving animal-free cell-cultured meat. However, the company hasn’t technically open-sourced the methods for re-use since they’ve also constructed some level of IP protection around elements of the process.
From Mosa founder Maarten Bosch: “Although the decision to publish this information could be seen as competitively sensitive, we highly value openness and transparency for the advancement of the entire cellular agriculture field. We’re also dedicated to creating a healthy business and protecting our intellectual property. Having made significant progress since submitting this paper over a year ago, we are convinced we are striking the right balance with this publication.“
It’s not that open source ideas and technologies are entirely incompatible with patent protection. In software, you can open source a technology and include a patent license grant as part of the open-source license. From the sounds of it, Mosa is specifically protecting its FBS-free feed formulation, limiting its use for commercial purposes without a license.
From the announcement: “We have filed a patent for the cell feed formulation, meaning it is publicly available but protected for commercial use for a limited amount of years.”
Patent protection or not, the industry certainly benefits from Mosa’s sharing of their processes as they innovate towards what they call “real meat” without the animal.
