Artificial blood vessels may help grow nugget-sized chicken in lab

Researchers are claiming a breakthrough in lab-grown meat after producing nugget-sized chunks of chicken in a device that mimics the blood vessels that make up the circulatory system.

- Ian Sample

The approach uses fine hollow fibres to deliver oxygen and nutrients to chicken muscle cells suspended in a gel, an advance that allowed scientists to grow lumps of meat up to 2cm long and 1cm thick. The hollow fibre bioreactor paves the way for whole cuts of chicken, beef, pork and fish to be grown in the lab, researchers said. The same technology has the potential to produce functional organs.

"This looks like a transformative step, it's a really elegant solution," said Prof Derek Stewart at the James Hutton Institute in Dundee. "They've created something of a size and scale that people are hardwired to eat: it's the chicken nugget model."