We are pleased to announce Vireo is part of a significant new project to assess the safety of serum free media components and standardize testing for the cultivated meat and seafood industry to accelerate innovation. A consortium formed by Multus and Vireo Advisors, with partners Aberystwyth University, Extracellular, and Endorphin Capital has been awarded a £500,000K grant by Innovate UK. We will develop in silico and in vitro methods to demonstrate the safety of media components and assess the feasibility of applying these methods to other cultivated meat inputs. The consortium will engage multiple stakeholder groups, including the British Standards Institute, BSI, as we work towards global standardization of methods to support public acceptance and commercialization of cultivated meat and seafood.

This project enables multi-stakeholder collaboration between industry members and academic partners to develop safety testing standards, allowing more streamlined and earlier adoption of these novel foods in the UK, and around the world. Interested members of the public, cultivated meat companies, food regulators, government agencies, and other industry stakeholders may participate in the Cultivated Meat Safety Initiative by filling out this form http://eepurl.com/gjwXkP.  Materials developed as part of this project will be distributed to the cultivated meat and seafood community worldwide using the “Open Cell Ag” platform being developed by New Harvest.

You can read the Multus announcement here.