Glossary

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Bioreactor

A bioreactor is any device or vessel used to carry out biochemical reactions to convert starting material (eg cells) into a product (eg meat). (Also known as a "cultivator") 

Cell Line

Cells that can be maintained and grown in a dish outside of the body.

Cellular Agriculture (CellAg)

Cellular agriculture (CellAg) involves the farming or harvesting of real animal products (like beef) from cells instead of the animals themselves.

Culture Media

In-vitro cultivation cannot be performed without culture media. It provides the nutrients and growth factors essential for cell proliferation.  

Cultivated Meat

Meat produced in the laboratory by placing animal cells in a nutrient-rich culture medium where they can easily multiply. (Also known as Lab-grown Meat, Clean Meat or Cultured Meat)  

Fetal Bovine Serum (FBS)

Fetal Bovine Serum (FBS) has traditionally been used within culture media for the proliferation of cells. FBS is harvested from calf fetuses taken from pregnant cows during slaughter. 

Magic Valley DOES NOT use FBS.

Growth Factors

Growth factors are substances that enable the growth of cultured meat in-vitro. Traditionally, fetal bovine serum (FBS) was used; however, it is against the main ethos of cultivated meat production as it is an animal blood product.  

Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSC)

Induced pluripotent stem cells are cells that were engineered (“induced”) from non-pluripotent cells to become pluripotent.

In-vitro

This is Latin for 'within the glass.'  When something is performed ‘in-vitro’, it happens outside of a living organism. The cell production of cultivated meat is done in laboratories and not inside the animals from which the cells are obtained. As such, cultivated meat production in the lab is conducted ‘in-vitro’.

Pluripotent Stem Cells 

Stem cells that can become all the cell types that are found in a developed organism (eg muscle, fat, etc).

Stem Cells 

Cells that have both the capacity to self-renew (make more stem cells by cell division) and to differentiate into mature, specialized cells.