[logfromblammo]

First, you start with a naturally grown bone-in leg of lamb. Then you completely decellularize it by running a detergent solution through it for a week. Then you culture the replacement lamb cells, and inject them into the appropriate places on the limb. Then you place the leg in a bioreactor and wait until the cell cultures spread throughout the existing matrix. Then, when you finish, you have a lab-grown leg that is 80% as good as the natural one!

Having to start with a natural limb seems to be the roadblock here.

So we're going to need to be able to volume-print an extracellular matrix before anybody gets any vat steaks. I'd guess a destructive scan of a single natural beef tenderloin and some stem cells from the World's Most Delicious Bovine would allow for unlimited numbers of vat-grown copies. And then it would still take quite a while to bring the unit cost down below feedlot cattle.

[techwraith]

So I guess I just have to wait until we have good enough 3D scanners to build a model of the non-cellular structures in the leg, then we need good enough 3D printers to print edible non-cellular structures at small enough sizes for the re-cellularization to work, and then I can eat a lab grown leg of lamb!

[robbiep]

We basically just need a way to print 3D collagen. We largely know what the structure is, the problem is replicating it.

This is compounded because collagen strength/structure increases after deposition through the action of enzymes that crosslink collagen chains - a problem that would need to be overcome in order to print it