Reports last week that researchers
could be just six months away from producing the
world’s first artificial meat, using thousands of stem
cells bred in a laboratory, sent a wave of fascination
around the world. Yet there is an even more ghoulish
prospect ahead: the idea of eating artificial food
made from humans.
This may sound like science fiction, yet a
new technique for making gelatin from human DNA is
attracting “increasing interest from research and
industrial circles”, according to a new study by scientists
from the Beijing University of Chemical Technology.
The paper, published recently in the Journal of
Agriculture and Food Chemistry, revealed that
successful experiments had been carried out in which
human genes were inserted into a strain of yeast to
“grow” large amounts of recombinant (genetically
engineered) human gelatin.
Gelatin has a long history
of use as a gelling agent by the food industry – and,
according to the journal’s publisher, the American
Chemical Society, human-derived gelatin “could become
a substitute for some of the 300,000 tons of
animal-based gelatin produced annually for desserts,
marshmallows, candy and innumerable other products”.
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