GFI acquires SCiFi Foods’ cell lines to lower cultivated meat research barriers

The Good Food Institute (GFI) has acquired a “small portion” of specific bovine cell lines and serum-free media from cultivated meat firm SCiFi Foods to accelerate R&D and remove major barriers to entry for start-ups in the sector. It has also partnered with Tufts University in the US, marking the “first” time suspension-adapted bovine cell lines will be available for cultivated meat researchers worldwide.

GFI and Tufts will first make the cell lines available to academic researchers, which will help “kickstart immediate R&D work” and enable studies to be run in small bioreactors. This can help researchers refine process development, says GFI.

“GFI continuously evaluates the technical and economic bottlenecks facing the cultivated meat sector. Again and again, we see that access to robust, scalable cell lines and affordable, defined media formulations are among the biggest barriers to progress for the R&D ecosystem,” Dr. Elliot Swartz, GFI’s senior principal scientist for cultivated meat, tells Food Ingredients First.

“By acquiring SCiFi’s cell lines and media and making them open access, we’re helping remove one of the field’s toughest bottlenecks, saving researchers years of duplicative work and millions in R&D costs. This is about accelerating innovation across the entire sector, so that researchers and companies don’t have to keep reinventing the wheel.”

Acquiring bovine cell lines

SciFi Foods was based in California and shut down in June, when the company put up its remaining assets for sale. GFI, Tufts University, and other research groups were notified about the auction, followed by the non-profit organization’s decision to buy various bovine cell lines and the special growth media they needed.

GFI’s bid was accepted in August 2024, and by mid-September, the cells and media were transferred to Tufts University’s Center for Cellular Agriculture (TUCCA) for storage and future distribution.

Swartz notes that Tufts University is a leading center for cellular agriculture research, which drove GFI’s decision to partner with it. Their teams have “put considerable thought into developing open-access cell lines and cell banking infrastructure for the cultivated meat sector.”

“We were confident that Tufts had the vision, skillset, and infrastructure to culture, maintain, bank, and make further improvements to the SCiFi cell lines, as well as others that may be added to their repository in the future,” he adds.

The open-access SCiFi cell lines remove major R&D bottlenecks, saving researchers years of “duplicative” work and significant costs, says Swartz.

Overcoming entry barriers

Cell line development currently requires significant time and funding from cultivated meat start-ups and researchers. According to GFI, these costs can reach US$2-10 million per start-up. 

Access to cell lines and media could save US$20-100 million for every ten cultivated meat start-ups, removing a significant barrier to entry.

Dr. Andrew Stout, assistant professor in the Tufts biomedical engineering department and faculty member at TUCCA, tells Food Ingredients First that the first thing new entrants into the field must do is obtain cells. 

He explains that this can be done through “primary cell isolations” (obtaining cells directly from an animal, which can be time, money, and labor-intensive) or by buying cell lines (limited to the available options).

In both cases, bovine cells are “naturally adherent” — growing only when attached to surfaces such as culture flasks or microcarriers. This severely limits the ability to scale up cell culture unless substantial further work is performed.

“The cells obtained from SCiFi Foods are not adherent and are instead able to grow ‘in suspension’ in bioreactors. This is the first time researchers can access suspension bovine cells for cultivated meat research.”

This allows them to immediately start working on scalable systems, thus increasing their work’s relevance and reducing the time required “dramatically” to start making an impact with commercially relevant cell types, Stout adds.

Targeting “real-world impact”

Using suspension cell lines, such as those acquired from SCiFi Foods, can help manufacturers culture them at higher densities in larger bioreactors than adherent cells, Stout explains.

“Higher cell densities can lower production footprints, increase input efficiencies, and improve scale-up’s economic and environmental impacts. While work will be required to optimize cultures of these cell lines, the opportunity presented by their inherent scalability is exciting.”

“More broadly, by unlocking more scale-relevant research across academia, these cell lines could accelerate development throughout the field, enabling faster market entry and real-world impact toward making our food systems more sustainable, ethical, and resilient,” he adds.

The new cell lines could speed up research and market entry, supporting more sustainable and resilient food systems, says Stout.

Closing cultivated meat data gaps

GFI plans to continue its investments in open-access research that moves the cultivated sector forward, Swartz shares.

“Through our research grants program, we’ve already funded nearly US$25 million across 125 projects worldwide. We’re also exploring ways to fund smaller, targeted studies using these SCiFi cell lines to close key data gaps in cultivated meat bioprocessing.”

“We’ll continue looking for opportunities to acquire and open up IP that can deliver an outsized impact for alternative proteins,” he concludes.