Dr. Mark Post shows off the first ever clean meat burger in 2013.





As a physician specialized in growing tissues, you were in the perfect position to pioneer the clean meat movement. What first gave you the idea of applying this technology to the food system?



Although I would love to take credit for that idea, it was really Willem van Eelen who in 2004—forced is the right word—the idea on some of us academic researchers in the Netherlands. I can only take credit for understanding the potential of using cell culture and tissue engineering technology to produce meat after having been triggered by Willem.



Since you created that first burger in 2013, famously sponsored by Google co-founder Sergey Brin, how has your perspective on clean meat changed?







Having worked on this for nearly 6 years on my own, I am relieved that so many companies, researchers, and people have embarked on the same problem and technology. That starts to validate the field, although there is still a long way to go.





As you’ve pointed out, it takes 10 weeks to make one burger but would take just 12 weeks to make 100,000 burgers. What are the implications of and the limitations on this exponential potential?







The exponential growth is very helpful in the production system in principle. In real life, it is a challenge to keep the exponential growth going as cells start to become older and competition for nutrients and oxygen starts: depletion of nutrients will also be exponential. New technologies need to be developed and perfected to achieve the maximum growth potential of the stem cells while maintaining their capacity to differentiate into mature muscle tissue.



