Korean Scientists Develop Marbled Cultivated Meat Using Self-Healing Scaffolding Technology

Researchers in Korea have developed a scaffolding technology for achieving precise marbling patterns in cultivated meat at scale. They have created self-healing hydrogels containing boronic acid-conjugated chitosan that allow for robust reversible bonding at a neutral pH, optimizing mechanotransduction for fat and muscle cell culture requirements. Biocompatibility studies have shown that the scaffolding technology supports the growth of various cells and enables the assembly of muscle and fat monocultures to create meat with intricate marbling patterns.

This new technology eliminates the need to cultivate muscle and fat separately, resulting in a more authentic meat-like appearance and texture with strong adhesion between the muscle and fat layers. It can easily be incorporated into existing cultivated meat production lines using affordable raw materials, providing a straightforward method for producing marbled meat with similar organoleptic properties and nutritional profiles to conventional meat.