HYDERABAD: Delhi-based Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) School of Biotechnology scientists while working on coconut water as a medium to grow meat cells in the lab found that it is killing the cells instead of helping them build. Scientists suspect that insecticides being sprayed on coconut trees, which seep into the coconut, are resposible for killing these cells.

JNU School of Biotechnology Dead Pawan K Dhar said, “For growing meat in the lab, if we used Foetal Bovine Serum, more than a million features have to be killed every year. So when we were working on coconut water as an alternative medium, we found that the cells were not growing. Farmers and suppliers told us that they inject insecticide into the tree. We have to do a chemical analysis of coconut water to conclude whether the insecticide is killing the cells. But we haven’t given up on it as a medium.”

