WEBVTT 00:00:14.441 --> 00:00:16.659 So, power of small. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:16.659 --> 00:00:19.057 This could have also been deconstruction. 00:00:19.057 --> 00:00:21.440 We have seen the universe deconstructed, 00:00:21.440 --> 00:00:23.273 we have seen management deconstructed, 00:00:23.273 --> 00:00:26.523 we have seen construction being deconstructed, 00:00:26.523 --> 00:00:28.857 and ego being deconstructed, 00:00:28.857 --> 00:00:31.509 and I'm going to deconstruct a cow for you. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:32.023 --> 00:00:34.342 Which might seem a little bit odd, 00:00:34.342 --> 00:00:35.863 and why would you do such a thing, 00:00:35.863 --> 00:00:36.783 and I will explain. 00:00:36.783 --> 00:00:40.896 First of all, are there any vegetarians in here? 00:00:42.342 --> 00:00:45.201 It's hard to see, about 4 or 5, which is pretty much 00:00:45.201 --> 00:00:50.296 the average for the Netherlands, and for every industrial population. 00:00:50.296 --> 00:00:52.391 You can doze off for a while... 00:00:52.391 --> 00:00:54.192 I'm talking to the meat eaters right now. 00:00:54.192 --> 00:00:56.250 After five minutes, you can wake up 00:00:56.250 --> 00:00:57.967 because then it becomes really interesting, 00:00:57.967 --> 00:00:59.901 but I'm first going to tell you 00:00:59.901 --> 00:01:03.240 what the problems are with meat production. 00:01:04.865 --> 00:01:07.601 So it all has to do with that these animals, 00:01:07.601 --> 00:01:10.493 these pigs and cows were never really designed 00:01:10.646 --> 00:01:13.857 and never had an evolution to serve as dinner for us, 00:01:14.395 --> 00:01:16.979 so they are not necessarily efficient, 00:01:16.979 --> 00:01:19.018 and in fact, they are very, very inefficient: 00:01:19.018 --> 00:01:23.553 for every 15 grams of meat that we eat, 00:01:23.553 --> 00:01:27.686 we have to feed those animals 100 grams of vegetable proteins. 00:01:27.686 --> 00:01:31.901 And so they have a bioconversion rate of 15 %. 00:01:31.901 --> 00:01:36.364 Already as we speak, livestock is using 70% 00:01:36.364 --> 00:01:39.745 of all our arable lands in the world. 00:01:40.905 --> 00:01:42.326 And what's even worse, 00:01:42.326 --> 00:01:45.190 the World Health Organization is predicting, 00:01:45.190 --> 00:01:51.209 that in 2050, meat consumption will be double what it is right now 00:01:51.209 --> 00:01:56.626 because of growing middle class in India, China, Brazil, Africa. 00:01:58.078 --> 00:02:01.033 So you can do the math, that's not going to work, 00:02:01.033 --> 00:02:02.933 and we need to come up with a solution. 00:02:02.933 --> 00:02:05.475 That's not the only problem, so food security is serious, 00:02:05.475 --> 00:02:06.992 but that's not the only problem. 00:02:07.735 --> 00:02:08.883 By now, we also know 00:02:08.883 --> 00:02:11.532 that these animals, being ruminants, 00:02:11.532 --> 00:02:18.729 actually excrete a whole lot of methane and CO². 00:02:18.729 --> 00:02:21.239 Now the ruminologists among you might say, 00:02:21.239 --> 00:02:24.159 well, actually, they don't fart methane, 00:02:24.159 --> 00:02:26.261 they belch methane, but, you know 00:02:26.261 --> 00:02:28.760 either way it comes out, and it gets into our atmosphere 00:02:28.760 --> 00:02:32.126 and it's a greenhouse gas, it's a very noxious greenhouse gas. 00:02:32.126 --> 00:02:34.114 So, that's another issue: 00:02:34.114 --> 00:02:38.523 20% of all the greenhouse gas emission comes from livestock. 00:02:38.523 --> 00:02:43.809 So, a vegetarian with a Hummer is actually better for the environment 00:02:43.809 --> 00:02:47.539 than a meat-eater with a bicycle. Right? 00:02:47.539 --> 00:02:49.443 (Laughter) 00:02:50.113 --> 00:02:52.331 And then there's of course animal welfare issues. 00:02:52.331 --> 00:02:55.371 I won't dwell on it but we all know it and we sort of hide it 00:02:55.371 --> 00:02:57.639 and we don't want to talk about it, so, 00:02:57.639 --> 00:02:59.760 can we have a solution for that problem? 00:02:59.760 --> 00:03:02.869 And in fact in 1932, Winston Churchill of all people 00:03:04.618 --> 00:03:08.402 mentioned in his book "Thoughts and adventures" that 00:03:08.402 --> 00:03:10.596 why would we actually grow an entire chicken 00:03:10.596 --> 00:03:13.340 if we only eat the breast and the wing? 00:03:13.340 --> 00:03:14.984 And he was befriended, 00:03:14.984 --> 00:03:17.151 --he was of course a statesman, so what did he know about biology?-- 00:03:17.151 --> 00:03:18.976 but he had a friend, Alexis Carrel, 00:03:18.976 --> 00:03:21.154 who was a Nobel prize winning physiologist 00:03:21.154 --> 00:03:25.599 and he at the first time, at that time, could keep organs alive 00:03:25.599 --> 00:03:27.404 outside of the body. 00:03:27.558 --> 00:03:30.817 He couldn't make organs, he couldn't create them, 00:03:30.817 --> 00:03:32.902 but he could keep them alive outside of the body, 00:03:32.902 --> 00:03:34.707 and from then they went on dreaming, 00:03:34.707 --> 00:03:37.917 what if we can also create these organs? 00:03:37.917 --> 00:03:41.483 At that time it just wasn't possible but nowadays, 00:03:41.483 --> 00:03:45.049 thanks to the advances in the medical field, 00:03:45.049 --> 00:03:48.538 we have stem cell technology, we have tissue engineering, 00:03:48.538 --> 00:03:49.804 and we are getting there. 00:03:49.804 --> 00:03:52.976 So, let's see how that works. 00:03:52.976 --> 00:03:54.600 Let's deconstruct this cow. 00:03:54.600 --> 00:03:56.593 You take a biopsy from a cow, 00:03:57.953 --> 00:04:00.594 that will give you a small piece of muscle, 00:04:01.016 --> 00:04:04.313 and muscle of course is the main ingredient of meat. 00:04:04.313 --> 00:04:06.253 Not the only one, I'll come back to that later, 00:04:06.253 --> 00:04:07.835 but we have this piece of muscle, 00:04:07.835 --> 00:04:09.596 and if you look at that piece of muscle 00:04:09.596 --> 00:04:11.318 under the microscope, you'll see muscle 00:04:11.318 --> 00:04:14.972 and you'll also see fat tissue, which gives some of the taste. 00:04:14.972 --> 00:04:21.600 And if you then look even closer at this material, 00:04:21.600 --> 00:04:23.578 you will see the skeletal muscle, 00:04:23.578 --> 00:04:26.747 the muscle cells, and there are tiny cells in there 00:04:26.747 --> 00:04:28.416 that are stem cells. 00:04:28.416 --> 00:04:31.079 Muscle stem cells, that only can make muscle. 00:04:31.079 --> 00:04:33.844 They're sitting there, waiting to repair the muscle 00:04:33.844 --> 00:04:35.384 once it's injured. 00:04:35.384 --> 00:04:39.374 Think about Robben at the European Soccer Championship 00:04:39.374 --> 00:04:41.368 three or four years ago. 00:04:42.340 --> 00:04:45.873 So they are sitting there, waiting to repair 00:04:45.873 --> 00:04:48.570 and they have a couple of very nice characteristics. 00:04:48.570 --> 00:04:50.954 Being stem cells, they can divide, 00:04:50.954 --> 00:04:53.775 they can multiply to tremendous numbers. 00:04:53.775 --> 00:04:56.073 Actually, from one stem cell, 00:04:56.073 --> 00:05:00.160 we can make 10,000 kilos of meat, theoretically. 00:05:00.160 --> 00:05:04.727 So, that is one of the crazy features of these cells, 00:05:04.727 --> 00:05:06.763 they can divide, they can multiply, 00:05:06.763 --> 00:05:09.845 they can make an entire mass of muscle. 00:05:10.772 --> 00:05:13.560 But these particular skeletal muscle cells 00:05:13.560 --> 00:05:18.420 are even more, sort of special, because they merge. 00:05:18.420 --> 00:05:19.951 They have to merge because 00:05:19.951 --> 00:05:23.908 a muscle fibre is actually a large fibre with lots of nuclei. 00:05:23.908 --> 00:05:26.014 It's a merger of a number of cells, 00:05:26.014 --> 00:05:28.166 and they do that pretty much by themselves. 00:05:28.166 --> 00:05:31.101 The only thing that we do is we starve them, 00:05:31.101 --> 00:05:32.439 and once we starve them, 00:05:32.439 --> 00:05:36.912 they stop proliferating and they start to merge into large fibers. 00:05:36.912 --> 00:05:39.491 And then there is another cool thing, 00:05:40.221 --> 00:05:43.677 that if you put them in a petri dish 00:05:43.677 --> 00:05:46.170 and you provide anchor points. 00:05:46.208 --> 00:05:48.208 -- and we use velcro for that, 00:05:48.208 --> 00:05:57.354 klittenbands, I bought this morning at the Hema here in Haarlem. 00:05:57.354 --> 00:06:01.272 And so we use actually the loop part of the velcro, 00:06:01.272 --> 00:06:03.968 it works a little bit better than the hook part, 00:06:03.968 --> 00:06:06.761 don't ask me why but it's just empirical. 00:06:06.761 --> 00:06:10.037 And we actually use the same from the Heima. 00:06:10.037 --> 00:06:13.287 And if you put that in your petri dish 00:06:13.287 --> 00:06:16.026 and you provide anchor points for those cells, 00:06:16.026 --> 00:06:17.822 they start to grab on it. 00:06:17.822 --> 00:06:20.928 They are actually exercise junkies, if you like, 00:06:20.928 --> 00:06:23.379 so we don't have to do anything they exercise themselves, 00:06:23.379 --> 00:06:25.403 they grab onto these anchor points 00:06:25.403 --> 00:06:28.867 and provide tension and they form a muscle, 00:06:28.867 --> 00:06:30.577 I will show a picture a little bit later. 00:06:30.577 --> 00:06:33.698 They form a muscle, provide tension, start to contract even, 00:06:33.698 --> 00:06:37.681 and with that they will exercise themselves 00:06:37.681 --> 00:06:41.099 and they will grow tissue, muscle fibers, small muscle fibers. 00:06:41.099 --> 00:06:45.760 If you just take a large number of those muscle fibers, 00:06:45.760 --> 00:06:53.373 20,000 to be exact, you can assemble a patty, a hamburger, 00:06:53.373 --> 00:06:56.204 and that's exactly what we have done. 00:06:56.204 --> 00:06:57.900 Of course you can also add fat to it. 00:06:57.900 --> 00:07:03.045 Now this hamburger contains 60 billion cells, so that's a lot. 00:07:03.045 --> 00:07:04.844 You need to culture a lot of cells 00:07:04.844 --> 00:07:09.433 and you need to somehow find a way to do that efficiently 00:07:09.433 --> 00:07:12.628 because, remember, we have to be more efficient than a cow or a pig. 00:07:13.766 --> 00:07:18.015 Currently we are using an inefficient system for it, 00:07:18.015 --> 00:07:20.799 and eventually we are going to use a bioreactor, 00:07:20.799 --> 00:07:23.950 a silver tank like this of 25,000 litre 00:07:23.950 --> 00:07:27.087 that is a sizeable pool, an olympic pool I guess, 00:07:27.087 --> 00:07:30.408 but with that you can feed 40,000 people per year, 00:07:30.408 --> 00:07:33.321 so that is already reasonable. 00:07:33.321 --> 00:07:35.466 Of course, I already said, 00:07:35.466 --> 00:07:38.851 it has to be efficient and it has to also be meat, 00:07:38.851 --> 00:07:40.761 not some kind of substitute. 00:07:40.761 --> 00:07:44.110 We have more than enough substitutes, from vegetable proteins. 00:07:44.110 --> 00:07:46.645 It needs really to be meat. 00:07:46.645 --> 00:07:49.511 And nothing less and nothing more. 00:07:49.511 --> 00:07:54.810 So mimicry is very very important, now what do you want in meat? 00:07:54.810 --> 00:08:00.263 You want of course taste, you want it to be red or pink or whatever 00:08:00.448 --> 00:08:02.415 but not yellow or white, 00:08:03.396 --> 00:08:08.007 and you want to have that particular mouthfeel of the meat. 00:08:08.517 --> 00:08:12.645 So how do we do that? Well, currently this is where we are. 00:08:12.645 --> 00:08:17.894 This hamburger on your left was assembled a couple of weeks ago 00:08:18.487 --> 00:08:21.057 from 8,000 of those muscle strips 00:08:21.057 --> 00:08:24.667 individually prepared in these culture dishes, 00:08:24.667 --> 00:08:25.872 taken out, harvested, 00:08:25.872 --> 00:08:28.263 making a patty out of it. 00:08:28.263 --> 00:08:31.054 And you see it's pretty close, wouldn't you say? 00:08:31.054 --> 00:08:32.989 Reasonably close. 00:08:33.649 --> 00:08:35.762 On the other side you see the cooked one, 00:08:35.762 --> 00:08:42.409 actually, one is a regular one from a cow, and the other is ours. 00:08:42.409 --> 00:08:46.014 And most of the people we fooled 00:08:46.014 --> 00:08:50.644 by letting them guess which one is which, they found it hard to tell. 00:08:52.091 --> 00:08:59.586 We did cheat a little bit here, because we painted this hamburger 00:08:59.586 --> 00:09:02.466 with beet juice from red beets which are actually purple 00:09:02.466 --> 00:09:04.610 so we added a little bit of saffron to it 00:09:04.610 --> 00:09:07.610 to make it a little bit more yellow and red. 00:09:07.610 --> 00:09:11.069 So the fibers are not quite red yet, they are yellow to be honest, 00:09:11.069 --> 00:09:12.884 because there is no blood in the system 00:09:12.884 --> 00:09:16.593 and what's more, there is no myoglobin in the system 00:09:16.593 --> 00:09:18.222 or not enough myoglobin. 00:09:18.222 --> 00:09:20.892 Myoglobin is a protein in those skeletal muscle cells 00:09:20.892 --> 00:09:23.396 that is very similar to hemoglobin in our blood. 00:09:23.396 --> 00:09:26.910 It turns red if it's exposed to oxygen, 00:09:26.910 --> 00:09:29.477 and muscle cells typically have a whole lot of it. 00:09:29.477 --> 00:09:33.201 Now, there are a fair amount of clues 00:09:33.201 --> 00:09:38.834 how you would induce that myoglobin in these tissues, 00:09:38.834 --> 00:09:41.386 and a talented postdoc in the lab 00:09:41.386 --> 00:09:45.652 started to work on actually starving the cells of oxygen. 00:09:45.652 --> 00:09:49.062 So low oxygen, we have systems for that, very easy to do, 00:09:49.062 --> 00:09:52.779 and then you see that myoglobin actually goes five fold up. 00:09:52.779 --> 00:09:55.460 There was also a report that caffeine, which is kind of interesting, 00:09:55.460 --> 00:09:58.613 caffeine would also induce that myoglobin, 00:09:58.613 --> 00:10:01.058 so the only thing is you couldn't eat hamburgers at night 00:10:01.058 --> 00:10:03.340 but, you know, that's a minor detail. 00:10:03.340 --> 00:10:06.386 Fortunately for us, the caffeine really didn't work, 00:10:06.386 --> 00:10:09.921 so we can revert to the lower oxygen, 00:10:09.921 --> 00:10:14.004 and we can in that way stimulate the myoglobin 00:10:14.004 --> 00:10:16.679 and turn our fibers into pink fibers. 00:10:16.679 --> 00:10:18.336 We haven't done that yet 00:10:18.336 --> 00:10:20.266 because we have only one of those incubators 00:10:20.266 --> 00:10:22.333 with a low oxygen capacity 00:10:22.333 --> 00:10:24.172 so all the others are just regular oxygen 00:10:24.172 --> 00:10:26.337 but that's just a matter of how you organize it, 00:10:26.337 --> 00:10:27.653 it can be done. 00:10:29.688 --> 00:10:31.495 Of course we need to feed those cells. 00:10:31.495 --> 00:10:33.795 -- now we get to efficiency -- 00:10:33.795 --> 00:10:34.775 We still need to feed them. 00:10:34.775 --> 00:10:37.328 We need to feed them sugars, we need to feed them aminoacids, 00:10:37.328 --> 00:10:38.901 we need to feed them lipids. 00:10:38.901 --> 00:10:43.194 Which by the way also gives us opportunities to change, 00:10:43.194 --> 00:10:46.067 use the biochemistry of the cell, 00:10:46.067 --> 00:10:49.342 of that very smart cell, which we really don't do anything with 00:10:49.342 --> 00:10:53.279 other than feeding it, and providing those anchor points. 00:10:53.279 --> 00:10:55.971 We use the biochemistry of these cells 00:10:55.971 --> 00:10:58.580 to produce more polyunsaturated fatty acids. 00:10:58.580 --> 00:11:02.475 We know they can do it, because if grazing animals 00:11:02.475 --> 00:11:09.000 have a higher polyunsaturated fatty acid fat 00:11:09.000 --> 00:11:11.810 than animals being fed from a feed lock, 00:11:11.810 --> 00:11:13.994 so we know they have the capacity to do it, 00:11:13.994 --> 00:11:15.583 they just usually don't. 00:11:15.583 --> 00:11:18.364 So we can use that biochemistry in the lab 00:11:18.364 --> 00:11:22.290 because we have all those variables very tightly under control 00:11:22.290 --> 00:11:24.947 to make it more efficient, to provide those proteins, 00:11:24.947 --> 00:11:26.876 and aminoacids in the right way, 00:11:26.876 --> 00:11:33.519 and to give fatty acids to make it into a healthier fat 00:11:33.519 --> 00:11:35.141 and a healthier burger. 00:11:37.821 --> 00:11:39.522 So this is the system, 00:11:39.522 --> 00:11:43.531 it looks like a refrigerator but it's in fact the opposite 00:11:43.531 --> 00:11:46.813 it's 37º C like our body, we call it an incubator. 00:11:46.813 --> 00:11:49.507 And the cells grow in there for a while. 00:11:49.507 --> 00:11:54.312 It takes about 7-8 weeks to grow a muscle fiber 00:11:54.312 --> 00:11:57.329 and so also 7-8 weeks to grow a hamburger. 00:11:57.329 --> 00:11:59.627 You could do it at home if you like. 00:12:01.164 --> 00:12:03.494 Needs quite a bit of space still, but 00:12:03.494 --> 00:12:05.360 eventually you can do it at home 00:12:05.360 --> 00:12:08.942 in your kitchen if you have the right equipment, 00:12:08.942 --> 00:12:10.942 it's very very easy to do. 00:12:10.942 --> 00:12:12.942 And in fact those stem cells, which is kind of interesting, 00:12:12.942 --> 00:12:16.006 that you could envision they survive 00:12:16.006 --> 00:12:18.968 freezing drying, so you could envision 00:12:18.968 --> 00:12:21.454 that over the internet, we would eventually sell 00:12:21.454 --> 00:12:24.406 little, sort of, tea bags of stem cells 00:12:24.406 --> 00:12:29.120 from tuna, from tiger, from cows, from pigs, 00:12:29.120 --> 00:12:31.565 from whatever animal you can imagine! 00:12:31.565 --> 00:12:33.290 And then you could in your own-- 00:12:33.290 --> 00:12:35.189 in the comfort of your own kitchen, 00:12:35.189 --> 00:12:37.408 you could grow your own tissue. 00:12:37.588 --> 00:12:38.723 You would have to know 00:12:38.723 --> 00:12:40.406 8 weeks in advance what you want to eat, 00:12:40.406 --> 00:12:42.006 because it takes a while. 00:12:42.006 --> 00:12:43.346 (Laughter) 00:12:43.346 --> 00:12:44.650 But it's a minor detail. 00:12:44.687 --> 00:12:48.169 Anyway. So the process right now, what I'm trying to tell you, 00:12:48.169 --> 00:12:50.470 the process right now is not really efficient. 00:12:50.470 --> 00:12:53.888 But we have all the variables under control so that 00:12:53.888 --> 00:12:56.024 we can eventually make it efficient. 00:12:56.024 --> 00:12:58.801 And if we go from 2D to 3D culture, 00:12:58.801 --> 00:13:01.206 we actually make a huge step in efficiency. 00:13:01.206 --> 00:13:03.284 So, that's our next step. 00:13:04.806 --> 00:13:11.844 And we also are dreaming of feeding those cells algae, salt-water algae. 00:13:11.844 --> 00:13:13.806 I'm thinking that the first factory is going to be 00:13:13.806 --> 00:13:15.240 at the mouth of the Mississippi, 00:13:15.240 --> 00:13:16.990 which is an algae dead zone, 00:13:16.990 --> 00:13:19.236 a huge, huge algae dead zone, 00:13:19.236 --> 00:13:21.482 that we can harvest those algae there, 00:13:21.482 --> 00:13:23.730 mesh them up and feed them to our cells, 00:13:23.730 --> 00:13:25.851 because these cells are not very picky. 00:13:25.851 --> 00:13:28.451 So, you could combine those technologies 00:13:28.451 --> 00:13:29.849 to make it even more efficient and 00:13:29.849 --> 00:13:35.450 you can also build in recycling mechanisms to improve the efficiency. 00:13:37.434 --> 00:13:39.164 And then of course I've already told you that 00:13:39.164 --> 00:13:41.342 these are exercise junkies. 00:13:41.342 --> 00:13:43.374 They really perform labor in there, 00:13:43.374 --> 00:13:47.379 but we want to get from a muscle like this 00:13:47.379 --> 00:13:51.472 to what I call a "Schwarzenegger bull". 00:13:52.641 --> 00:13:55.325 This is in fact a blanc bleu belge. 00:13:55.325 --> 00:13:57.380 I don't know whether you recognize them, 00:13:57.380 --> 00:14:00.455 this is a particular strain in Belgium, 00:14:00.455 --> 00:14:03.405 and these animals actually have a mutation, 00:14:03.405 --> 00:14:07.788 a natural mutation in a protein that limits muscle growth. 00:14:07.788 --> 00:14:11.324 So, we don't want limitation of muscle growth in the petri dish, 00:14:11.324 --> 00:14:15.370 so, we are also using the stem cells of these guys to see 00:14:15.370 --> 00:14:18.996 whether we can improve protein concentration. 00:14:18.996 --> 00:14:20.694 Now, this is the cool part. 00:14:21.003 --> 00:14:25.483 Imagine those cells where we have taken them out of a biopsy. 00:14:25.483 --> 00:14:27.522 They grow out of that muscle. 00:14:27.522 --> 00:14:31.545 They have become from 1 to 10 ^14 cells, 10,000 kilos of meat, 00:14:31.545 --> 00:14:35.316 and then we put them in a gel in between two anchor points. 00:14:35.316 --> 00:14:38.545 And you see that on your left here, 00:14:38.545 --> 00:14:41.396 and it's a gel and here the anchors are not velcro 00:14:41.396 --> 00:14:43.610 but are silk wires, it's all the same. 00:14:43.610 --> 00:14:47.295 24 hours after this, if you take the same picture, 00:14:47.295 --> 00:14:49.072 they have organized that gel, 00:14:49.072 --> 00:14:51.689 and they have organized it into a muscle fiber 00:14:51.689 --> 00:14:53.386 in between those anchor points. 00:14:53.386 --> 00:14:55.545 Basically, already a muscle. 00:14:55.545 --> 00:14:58.462 Then they need another three weeks of maturing 00:14:58.462 --> 00:15:01.086 to build a full muscle. 00:15:02.661 --> 00:15:05.184 Now, we can also electro-stimulate them, we can zap them. 00:15:05.184 --> 00:15:08.859 then they will contract even more and they will produce fibers 00:15:08.859 --> 00:15:12.070 that are indistinguishable from the real thing. 00:15:13.099 --> 00:15:14.650 But of course, that takes a lot of energy. 00:15:14.650 --> 00:15:18.250 And in fact our muscle in our body is not really electrically stimulated, 00:15:18.250 --> 00:15:21.049 it's chemically stimulated, so we might eventually 00:15:21.049 --> 00:15:24.650 take another mechanism and give the chemical stimulus 00:15:24.650 --> 00:15:28.249 sort of in a repetitive manner to train those muscles even more. 00:15:28.249 --> 00:15:30.118 And now you would say, the skeletal muscle 00:15:30.118 --> 00:15:33.784 is not the only component of meat. 00:15:33.784 --> 00:15:37.191 We want fat in there, we want really marbled steaks, 00:15:37.191 --> 00:15:40.383 we want, you know, juicy stuff. 00:15:40.383 --> 00:15:43.609 And maybe you want a T-bone steak even, if you are really into it. 00:15:45.039 --> 00:15:47.106 So, can you make that as well? 00:15:47.106 --> 00:15:48.555 And of course we can make that as well, 00:15:48.555 --> 00:15:51.159 we can pretty much make everything. 00:15:51.159 --> 00:15:53.522 Excuse me, I'm going too fast. 00:15:53.522 --> 00:15:56.002 We can make those-- we can use those stem cells also 00:15:56.002 --> 00:15:58.409 to create fat tissue. 00:15:58.409 --> 00:16:00.658 And in fact, we have already done that. 00:16:00.658 --> 00:16:04.723 For the current prototype hamburger we haven't yet, 00:16:04.723 --> 00:16:08.317 because it's really cumbersome to do them all at the same time, 00:16:08.317 --> 00:16:11.752 but it can be done and we have shown that it can be done. 00:16:11.752 --> 00:16:16.587 And currently we are using that with very varied methods 00:16:16.587 --> 00:16:19.585 that are compatible with eating. 00:16:19.585 --> 00:16:22.503 Now currently we are making these small fibers, 00:16:22.503 --> 00:16:25.836 which is good for processed meats such as a hamburger, 00:16:25.836 --> 00:16:31.477 and which is, by the way, about 50 % of all the meat consumption; 00:16:31.477 --> 00:16:34.197 so, you know, even if we would stick to that, 00:16:34.197 --> 00:16:37.197 we would already make a big step ahead, 00:16:37.197 --> 00:16:40.835 but my ambition is actually to make a steak or a pork chop. 00:16:40.835 --> 00:16:45.503 So what would you need to do, that's a limitation of tissue engineering 00:16:45.503 --> 00:16:50.101 because the thicker the tissue gets, the inside cells 00:16:50.101 --> 00:16:52.752 will be deprived of nutrients and of oxygen, 00:16:52.752 --> 00:16:55.168 so they will start to die. 00:16:55.168 --> 00:16:57.182 So, that's why we have blood vessels, 00:16:57.822 --> 00:17:00.157 and I also make blood vessels, 00:17:00.157 --> 00:17:02.157 I would like to make blood vessels, it's not particularly 00:17:02.157 --> 00:17:04.738 necessary in these tissues because we don't have any blood, 00:17:04.738 --> 00:17:08.515 but we still need a channel system, in a flow system 00:17:08.515 --> 00:17:11.518 to get all the nutrients and oxygen 00:17:11.518 --> 00:17:14.280 to all the nooks and crannies of that tissue. 00:17:15.516 --> 00:17:17.289 And that can be done. 00:17:17.289 --> 00:17:20.077 Friends of mine in California have a 3D printer 00:17:20.077 --> 00:17:23.198 where you 3D print, basically, a steak, you print the cells 00:17:23.198 --> 00:17:25.622 and you print the material, and you print those little tubes 00:17:25.622 --> 00:17:29.279 in a hierarchical manner and you have an inflow and an outflow 00:17:29.279 --> 00:17:33.169 and you can create, in principle, thicker tissues. 00:17:33.169 --> 00:17:35.998 So eventually we can create steaks and pork chops if you, 00:17:35.998 --> 00:17:37.955 again, are into it. 00:17:38.557 --> 00:17:42.410 OK, so then there is another final challenge, minor one. 00:17:42.410 --> 00:17:44.622 Will people ever eat this? 00:17:44.622 --> 00:17:46.879 It's coming out of a factory, or out of a lab even, 00:17:46.879 --> 00:17:52.190 it's sort of Frankenstein-ish, creepy, you know, whatever... 00:17:52.190 --> 00:17:56.877 So will people eat this? And if you go with a microphone 00:17:56.877 --> 00:18:00.293 through the streets of Haarlem and you, sort of randomly ask people, 00:18:00.293 --> 00:18:04.396 they'll say, "No way, are you out of your mind?" 00:18:04.396 --> 00:18:08.997 But if you rephrase the question: "So, 20 years from now, 00:18:08.997 --> 00:18:10.042 you walk into a supermarket 00:18:10.042 --> 00:18:11.677 and you see those two products, those two meats. 00:18:11.677 --> 00:18:13.757 One is made in the lab, it has an LM (lean meat) on it, 00:18:13.757 --> 00:18:16.678 and it's cheap and it's at the same price, 00:18:16.678 --> 00:18:21.460 it's the same taste, and the same color and the same mouthfeel, 00:18:21.460 --> 00:18:23.708 and you have these other products that now has an eco tax 00:18:23.708 --> 00:18:26.117 is four times more expensive because it's scarce, 00:18:26.117 --> 00:18:28.057 and it also has this nasty little label 00:18:28.057 --> 00:18:30.437 that animals have suffered for that product, 00:18:30.437 --> 00:18:32.598 what are you going to choose?" 00:18:32.598 --> 00:18:36.708 I bet the choice is going to be, you know, favorable 00:18:36.708 --> 00:18:39.999 in terms of this particular product. 00:18:39.999 --> 00:18:43.479 Currently this hamburger costs 250,000 euros. 00:18:43.479 --> 00:18:47.709 Hmm, and I'd like to stress that, and also to make the point 00:18:47.709 --> 00:18:50.917 that it's not a real product yet, it's a proof of concept. 00:18:50.917 --> 00:18:53.792 Showing to the world, guys, we can do this. 00:18:53.792 --> 00:18:57.119 We can make this product in an efficient way. 00:18:57.119 --> 00:18:58.839 We actually have done some calculations which 00:18:58.839 --> 00:19:02.676 come down to a much more reasonable price. 00:19:02.676 --> 00:19:06.036 But we can do this, and my ambition is 00:19:06.036 --> 00:19:08.805 to gather a lot of people and a lot of money 00:19:08.805 --> 00:19:12.756 to do all the research that's required to, sort of 00:19:12.756 --> 00:19:18.308 take out all the small obstacles and get these onto your plates basically. 00:19:19.103 --> 00:19:20.517 Thank you. 00:19:20.517 --> 00:19:25.843 (Applause)