Cellular Agriculture @ TUM School of Life Sciences

The professorship of Cellular Agriculture was established in September 2022. The main focus of Cellular Agriculture at the TUM School of Life Sciences is the development of biotechnological processes and concepts for the alternative production of agricultural products. This addresses in particular problems and challenges related to environmental impact, animal welfare and sustainability aspects of conventional livestock farming for meat production. Cellular Agriculture research addresses alternative meat production ("cultured meat"), which can be produced using mammalian cell lines, and future protein-based products for human consumption using high-performance microbial processes ("precision fermentation").
Cellular Agriculture at the TUM School of Life Sciences is positioned at the interface of research and practice and thematically between engineering, biotechnology and food sciences. An important feature is that our core competencies have their roots in industrial biotechnology. These range from the development of cost-effective and highly efficient processes, starting with strain development methods, to process control and purification methods. This opens up the possibility for us to cover the entire process chain, and at the same time to have important efficiency parameters of industrial biotechnology in view at an early stage.