Scientists have used an artificial circulatory system to create lab-grown chicken, which may improve its texture
By James Woodford
16 April 2025
A machine delivers a nutrient-rich liquid to artificial chicken fibres
Shoji Takeuchi The University of Tokyo
A thick, bite-sized piece of chicken fillet has been grown in a lab using tiny tubes to mimic the capillaries found in real muscle. Researchers say this gives the product a chewier texture.
When growing thick pieces of cultured meat, one major problem is that cells in the centre don’t get enough oxygen or nutrients, so they die and break down, says Shoji Takeuchi at the University of Tokyo.
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“This leads to necrosis and makes it hard to grow meat with good texture and taste,” he says. “Our goal was to solve this by creating a way to feed cells evenly throughout the tissue, just like blood vessels do in the body. We thought, ‘What if we could create artificial capillaries using hollow fibres?’”
The fibres used by Takeuchi and his colleagues were inspired by similar hollow tubes used in the medical industry, such as for kidney dialysis. To create the lab-grown meat, the team essentially wanted to create an artificial circulatory system. “Dialysis fibres are used to filter waste from blood,” says Takeuchi. “Our fibres are designed to feed living cells.”
First, the researchers 3D-printed a small frame to hold and grow the cultured meat, attaching more than 1000 hollow fibres using a robotic tool. They then embedded this array into a gel containing living cells.