Massachusetts-based Tufts University has announced that it will be using a $2.1 million state grant to create an innovation hub that will help bring future foods such as cultivated meat to market.
As reported by WBUR, the hub will open later this year on the university’s Medford campus. It will enable scientists, policymakers, and entrepreneurs to work together, accelerating the commercialization of innovative foods.
The center will include an open-access cell bank, which will offer cell lines for cultivated meat research with very few restrictions on their use. It will also feature lab equipment and a test kitchen.
“A public good to benefit the entire field”
The news comes after the Tufts University Center for Cellular Agriculture (TUCCA) partnered with the Good Food Institute (GFI) last year to acquire cell lines and growth media from SCiFi Foods, a cultivated meat company that ceased operations in mid-2024. GFI successfully bid for the technology at auction, before transferring it to Tufts for storage and validation.
These resources will now be made available through the cell bank at the new innovation hub, in a move that could reduce costs and speed up development in the cultivated meat sector.
“We are essentially composting intellectual property, or IP, from an individual start-up and transforming it into a public good to benefit the entire field,” said Meera Zassenhaus, director of communications for TUCCA, in October. “This model of IP re-use makes sense for all kinds of technologies even beyond alternative proteins, especially as climate tech broadly faces a contraction in funding.”
