Summary
The National Institute for Cellular Agriculture (NICA) was established in 2021 via a historic $10M USDA grant. The National Institute for Cellular Agriculture is housed within the Tufts University Center for Cellular Agriculture (TUCCA), which coordinates research along seven discrete aims alongside seven other universities.
The difference between the Tufts University Center for Cellular Agriculture (TUCCA) and the National Institute for Cellular Agriculture (NICA):
TUCCA is the overarching branch for everything cell ag happening at Tufts. The National Institute for Cellular Agriculture was established in 2021 via a historic $10M USDA grant and is one of TUCCA’s programmatic pillars. The National Institute for Cellular Agriculture is housed within TUCCA, which coordinates research across seven discrete aims alongside seven other universities. The USDA grant was catalytic, enabling large-scale, unprecedented collaboration with researchers across the country to overcome technological challenges and leverage our roles as precompetitive, noncommercial institutions to engage the public.
NICA Aims:
- Evaluate consumer acceptance, consumer willingness-to-pay, and the flavor profile of novel meat as both a stand-alone product and an ingredient in prepared dishes
- Analyze the environmental performance of cultivated meat products in the U.S.
- Educate the next generation of professionals for workforce development
- Develop a sustainable pluripotent stem-cell line platform with robust, scalable proliferation and differentiation potential for broad utility in the field
- Develop economically viable serum-free, value-added media, and media recycling to support cell proliferation and differentiation needs and reduce system waste, by integrating molecular modeling, coarse-graining, and long-time scale umbrella sampling methods, AI, and high throughput screening for advanced functionality
- Develop sustainable biomaterial scaffolds, tissue engineering strategies, and fermentation technologies to support meat structure, color, and flavor development
- Optimize the processes and biomaterials integration to enhance nutritional value, quality, and safety
Select NICA accomplishments:
- Established the first and only publicly available fish muscle cell line from the Atlantic Mackerel
- Conducted sensory analysis on cultivated fat
- Applied artificial intelligence to support the development of media, scaffolds, and other biomaterials – this work resulted in significant reductions in growth media costs via the discovery of substitutes for serum and growth factors
- Developed food safety plan for cultivated seafood
- Mobilized students across member universities to create vibrant cellular agriculture ecosystems at their respective institutions (via Instagram, TikTok, student clubs, etc.)
