Rational design of serum-free media for cultivated meat

1. Post, M. J. Development of cell culture media for cultivated meat production. Adv. Biochem. Eng. Biotechnol. https://doi.org/10.1007/10_2025_312 (2025).

   Article  Google Scholar 

2. Quek, J. P. et al. Exploring cost reduction strategies for serum free media development. npj Sci. Food 8, 107 (2024).

   Article  Google Scholar 

3. Messmer, T. et al. A serum-free media formulation for cultured meat production supports bovine satellite cell differentiation in the absence of serum starvation. Nat. Food 3, 74–85 (2022).

   Article  Google Scholar 

4. Zhang, S. et al. An efficient serum-free medium for ex vivo expansion of myoblasts from Larimichthys crocea for cultured meat production. Food Res. Int. 196, 115073 (2024).

   Article  Google Scholar 

5. O’Neill, E. N. et al. Spent media analysis suggests cultivated meat media will require species and cell type optimization. npj Sci. Food 6, 46 (2022).

   Article  Google Scholar 

6. Mardinoglu, A. & Palsson, B. Ø. Genome-scale models in human metabologenomics. Nat. Rev. Genet. 26, 123–140 (2025).

   Article  Google Scholar 

7. Park, S. Y. et al. Driving towards digital biomanufacturing by CHO genome-scale models. Trends Biotechnol 42, 1192–1203 (2024).

   Article  Google Scholar 

8. Chandrasekaran, S. et al. Comprehensive mapping of pluripotent stem cell metabolism using dynamic genome-scale network modeling. Cell Rep. 21, 2965–2977 (2017).

   Article  Google Scholar 

9. Dong, N. et al. Auxenochlorella pyrenoidosa extract supplementation replacing fetal bovine serum for Carassius auratus muscle cell culture under low-serum conditions. Food Res. Int. 164, 112438 (2023).

   Article  Google Scholar 

10. Park, H. et al. Metabolomic insights of cultured meat compared to conventional meat. Sci. Rep. 15, 15668 (2025).

    Article  Google Scholar 

11. Mathieu, T. et al. Integrative multi-omics modeling for cultivated meat production, quality, and safety. Trends Food Sci. Technol. 166, 105364 (2025).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors and Affiliations

1. Bioprocessing Technology Institute, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore, Singapore

   Yin Ying Ho, Ying Swan Ho & Meiyappan Lakshmanan

2. Department of Biotechnology, Bhupat and Jyoti Mehta School of Biosciences, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India

   Sanjay Sivakumar & Meiyappan Lakshmanan

3. Department of Food Science and Technology, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

   Ying Swan Ho

4. Wadhwani School of Data Science and AI (WSAI), Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India

   Meiyappan Lakshmanan

5. Centre for Integrative Biology and Systems medicinE (IBSE), Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India

   Meiyappan Lakshmanan

Contributions

M.L. conceptualized the paper and coordinated the team. S.S. wrote the first draft. Y.Y.H. restructured the manuscript and contributed to writing and improving different sections. M.L. and Y.S.H. edited the manuscript and supervised the work. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Ying Swan Ho or Meiyappan Lakshmanan.

Competing interests

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.