The development of sustainable and ethical alternatives to traditional livestock farming has led to significant interest in cultivated meat and milk

The development of sustainable and ethical alternatives to traditional livestock farming has led to significant interest in cultivated meat and milk. While these technologies hold immense promise for addressing food security, environmental concerns, and animal welfare issues, together with several economic, ethical, and regulatory challenges must be overcome to realize their full potential. A major hurdle in cultivated food production is the development of cost-effective, sustainable and animal-free culture media which can support cell growth and differentiation. 

Hydrolysates of single-cell organisms such as microalgae and yeasts are rich in amino acids, peptides, vitamins, glucose, and minerals. Those nutrients are important in cell growth and differentiation. Therefore, hydrolysates of microalgae and yeasts, produced by chemical or enzymatic hydrolysis would be promising alternatives to conventional cell culture media. The present project will optimize an efficient and effective hydrolysis method to release nutrients from these single-cell organisms and develop an eco-friendly and sustainable cell culture media. 

The student will be aligned with a postdoc and will get hands-on experience in different hydrolysis methods including enzymatic and chemical hydrolysis and analytical techniques to characterize the hydrolysates (HPLC, GC-MS, LC-MS, and ICP-MS)