Food, health and environment are three verticals that share a common goal: the welfare of the population. While each of these verticals raises their own issues, it’s possible to address some of them with the same technology: 3D Bioprinting.
That’s anyway what the tripartite collaboration between National University Corporation Osaka University (“Osaka University“), Shimadzu Corporation (“Shimadzu“), and SIGMAXYZ Inc. (“SIGMAXYZ“) ambitions to address.
The three partners will develop together a new food tech ecosystem that will enable the development of new food products and services – the ultimate goal being to enhance people’s health, drug discovery, and the evolution of medicine.
As part of this collaboration, Osaka University is conducting further research on 3D bioprinting technology, Shimadzu Corporation is in charge of analytical and measuring instruments including automated pretreatment systems, and SIGMAXYZ brings to the table its consulting and ecosystem building in the food tech field.
The first step for these partners will be to effectively develop and commercialize an automated production equipment for tailor-made cultured meat using 3D bioprinting. This technology is expected to be utilized in the fields of food, regenerative medicine, and drug discovery, including “cultured meat with controlled arrangement of muscle, fat, and blood vessels” and “models of athletic organs and internal organs using human cells”, the partners said.
According to a press communication, most of the cultured meats reported so far have a minced structure consisting only of muscle cells, making it difficult to reproduce complex structures. To solve this problem, Matsusaki and co-workers developed a 3D bioprinting technology that uses 3D printing to produce different fibrous tissues (muscle, fat, and blood vessels) and integrates them into a bundle. This technology has made it possible not only to reproduce the beautiful “sashi” of Wagyu beef, but also to delicately adjust the fat and muscle components. Osaka University and Shimadzu will jointly develop equipment to automate the production of cultured meat using this technology.
However, prior to the commercialization process, a lot remains to be done. The partners need to conduct a joint research with other companies to develop the technology. This includes working with organizations with peripheral technologies and know-how, organizations in the meat supply chain, and continue the dissemination of information about 3D bioprinting technology to society.
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