Israel researcher explores producing chicken meat in lab

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  Tel Aviv University's Amit Gefen has launched a project to study the possibility of producing chicken meat in a laboratory.

  From WATTAgNet:
  A Tel Aviv University professor has launched a research project studying the possibility of producing chicken meat in a laboratory. The study in Israel is being funded by the non-profit group Modern Agriculture Foundation (MAF), which advocates for laboratory-produced meat, also known as cultured meat.
  The study comes about two years after the creation of the first lab-grown hamburger at Maastricht University in the Netherlands.
  According to Amit Gefen, a Tel Aviv University bioengineer with an expertise in tissue engineering, and Shir Friedman, co-founder of MAF, producing lab-grown chicken meat is more difficult than beef. In the hamburger case, researchers accumulated small fibers of a cow’s muscle into a piece of meat. In the new project, Gefen says his plans are to use a single cell to generate a piece of chicken by allowing the cell to divide and multiply.
  Freidman says that the production of cultured meat and poultry could help meet the growing demand for food, specifically proteins. A Reuters report on the year-long feasibility research explains that producing cultured meat and poultry could be valuable because the global demand for poultry and other meat is expected to double by 2050.
  “In the not so distant future we will look back at how we used to raise cows and chickens and put so much effort into getting a small piece of meat,” Friedman said.