Corrections: An Sept.20 article with the headline "From Factory Farms To Test Tubes: The Future Of Meat" incorrectly stated that Vladimir Mironov was currently employed by the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC); that Nicholas Genovese was a researcher at the university; and together the two were working on a $20 million grant for cultured meat. Vladimir Mironov's contract with MUSC expired Jul. 1, 2011, Nicholas Genovese was only a visiting scholar to the university, and the $20 million grant was for the research of "tissue biofabrication." Neon Tommy regrets the error. 

Bernard Roelen of the University of Utrecht opens a stem cell incubator (Brendan Borrell, Scientific American)

As the world population continues to grow, placing increasing amounts of stress on our environment, scientists, environmentalists, and economists alike have turned to producing lab grown sheets of meat, or "shmeat."

Many of those thinkers met at an exploratory workshop hosted by the Chalmers University of Technology and the European Science Federation from Aug. 31 through Sept. 2.

The workshop--In vitro meat: Possibilities and Realities for an Alternative Future Meat Source--allowed participants to discuss the realities of a more environmentally sustainable protein.

In vitro meat is derived from animal stem cells that are directed to form into muscle tissue. Like regular meat, in order to grow the cells the resulting muscle needs to be both fed and exercised.

In the past, scientists used blood to encourage the cells to multiply. The newest technology enables them to substitute a bacterium cultivated in ponds, which uses photosynthesis-like means to gain nutrients. The sheets of growing cells are then induced with electrical currents that prevent the muscle from atrophying and dying.

This method of production is expensive at this stage of development; A pound of meat would probably cost about $50,000 to produce. Because such large amounts of electricity must be run through the cell cultures, the largest piece of shmeat created so far is only 2.5 centimeters long and 0.7 centimeters wide. However, finding other means of growing this meat alternative may be worth pursuing to reduce other environmental costs.

The Scientific American described a study coauthored by Hanna Tuomisto, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Oxford, who found in vitro meat grown on a vegetarian diet in a bacterial culture would significantly lessen impact on the environment.

Compared with conventional methods of meat production in Europe, lab-grown meat would be extremely efficient. On a large scale, in vitro meat would result in up to to 60 percent lower energy use, 95 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions, and 98 percent lower land use.

With a growing population and increasing affluence, (especially in countries like India and China), our insatiable needs for meat are only climbing. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations predicted that the world consumption of meat will double between 2000 and 2050.

Even in 1932, proponents were vocalizing the need for a more efficient and environmentally friendly meat source. In Winston Churchill’s book, Thoughts and Adventures, he predicted, “fifty years hence, we shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing by growing these parts separately under suitable medium.” Though he may have been off some decades in that forecast, his basic reasoning still stands as one of the core values of today's researchers.

One of the researchers to attend the workshop earlier this month, Vladimir Mironov, formerly of the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), pointed out that we are also running out of agricultural land on which to grow livestock.

While it may be wasteful to grow an entire chicken solely for the breast meat, surely the land on which those chickens would grow is being used equally inefficiently. Instead, in vitro meat could be cultivated on less land, resulting in more food to satisfy our growing populace. "The growth of "cultured" or in-vitro meat may be a vital step towards solving the global food crisis and fighting hunger in the future," he said.

This new scientific direction has gained some surprising support. Mironov and a visiting scholar of MUSC, Nicholas Genovese, have recently been working together on this research. However, their first $25,000 break came from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA.

In addition to PETA’s moral qualms about eating animals, the organization has recognized that eliminating even parts of the meat industry would dramatically reduce "the devastating effects the meat industry has on the environment."

In 2008, the non-profit announced that it would award $1 million to the first person to outline a process for producing in vitro chicken meat on a commercial scale by 2012.

While no one has laid claim to the prize so far, hopes are high that PETA judges may be doing some sampling by mid 2012. The finalists’ creations will be prepared with PETA’s own vegetarian fried "chicken" recipe.

Reach reporter Makena Hudson here.