Researchers at Técnico Lisboa, the School of Engineering, Technology, and Science at the University of Lisbon, have successfully produced cultivated sea bass filets using 3D bioprinting. The researchers claim their development as a world first.
The first attempts produced thin sashimi slices, though current progress has led to fillets up to six centimeters thick, featuring the characteristic texture of sea bass as well as its aroma due to the microalgae-based bioinks used for bioprinting, explains Técnico Lisboa.
The research in fish cultivation began in 2019 as part of a project for the Entrepreneurship curricular unit that aimed to develop fish for sushi. Since then, the research has continued in the laboratory of the Institute of Bioengineering and Biosciences (iBB), and the team has grown from four researchers in 2020 to 15 members, including Diana Marques, a doctoral student in Bioengineering (featured image).
“The last two years have been wonderful in terms of progress. Sometimes, when you enter the laboratory, it smells like fish; some joke, asking if this is a market stall,” says Frederico Ferreira, professor at Técnico Lisboa and researcher at the iBB, who also led the Algae2Fish project to develop algae-based bioinks funded by the Good Food Institute with €215,000 in 2022.
Stem cells, bioinks, and repurposed 3D printers
After obtaining stem cells without animal suffering — a key motivation for the research — the scientists focused on cell differentiation to produce muscle and fat, the essential components of meat and fish. The next step involved creating large biomass to form either simple products like nuggets or more structured items such as fish filets or steaks using food inks and 3D bioprinting.
Afonso Gusmão, a doctoral student and researcher at the iBB, adapted a commercial microplastics 3D printer; meanwhile, Diana Marques (during her master’s thesis) developed the bioinks containing sea bass cells to meet various parameters such as viscosity, printing temperature, and suitability for human consumption.
According to the announcement, Gusmão is developing bioreactors that use small electric shocks to align cell cultures, improving the fibrous texture and structure of the filet and enhancing the consumer experience. “If we’re creating these fibers, we could offer textures and structures to the filet that we wouldn’t be able to achieve otherwise,” Gusmão told Técnico Lisboa.
A taste of the future
Now that the cultivated filets are a reality, the team plans to conduct taste tests of the cultivated sea bass filets with the Portuguese Institute of the Sea and Atmosphere (IPMA), which will compare these prototypes to conventionally farmed fish.
Public tastings are currently restricted in the EU, with exceptions in the Netherlands. Singapore (chicken and quail), the USA (two chicken products), and Israel (beef) have already approved cultivated meat.
Researchers are optimistic that cultivated meat could enter the EU market in the coming years, pending legislative changes and consumer acceptance.
Cultivated seafood has the potential to meet the growing food demands of the future without compromising environmental health. “We need, at this moment, a way to produce meat and fish sustainably,” Diana said.
“We will make animal tissues for consumption to meet the [food] needs that we will have in the coming decades more sustainably,” Ferreira added.
In a similar achievement in cultivated seafood, the US-cultivated seafood startup Atlantic Fish Co. has developed a hybrid cultivated black sea bass prototype called “bass bite.”
