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Published on: January 8, 2017
Serum-Free Media in Cellular Agriculture: Current Challenges, Design Strategies, and Future Prospects
Penglin He1,2,3, Qinghua Ye2,3, Rong Yang1,2,3
1Department of Food Science and Technology, School of Agriculture and Biology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai200240, China.
Abstract:
Cellular agriculture (CA), an emerging and sustainable agricultural paradigm, offers a promising solution to global challenges in food security and environmental sustainability. However, the large-scale manufacturing of CA is hindered by its dependence on serum-based culture media, which are costly and compositionally variable and raise biosafety and animal welfare concerns. Addressing this bottleneck requires the development of affordable, reliable, and ethically compliant serum-free media (SFM). This perspective elucidates the functional roles of serum components, summarizes recent advances in serum substitutes, and highlights microorganism-derived substitutes as particularly promising because of their low cost, compositional stability, and scalability. Furthermore, we outline the evolution of SFM formulation from empirical and design-of-experiment-based optimization to multiomics-driven formulation and artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted design. Overall, this review provides a focused framework for understanding current challenges, design strategies, and future directions of SFM development for CA.
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