3D printing in recent months has given the world cheaper scientific equipment, confectionery and even a way to circumvent handcuffs but the latest foray into 3D printed matter will generate meat, if everything goes according to plan.

A division of billionaire Peter Thiel’s Thiel Foundation, Breakout Labs, has announced today a grant for a startup called Modern Meadow. The six-figure grant will go towards developing “…a fundamentally new approach to meat and leather production that is based on the latest advances in tissue engineering and causes no harm to animals” called bioprinting.

Bioprinting is a method for creating organs and tissue utilising “…the computer-controlled delivery of cells in three dimensions.” Modern Meadow is hoping to produce several new technologies based around tissue creation, including an edible meat prototype which “…can provide a humane and sustainable source of animal protein to consumers around the world.”

Breakout Labs’ executive director Lindy Fishburne said “Modern Meadow is combining regenerative medicine with 3D printing to imagine an economic and compassionate solution to a global problem. We hope our support will help propel them through the early stage of their development, so they can turn their inspired vision into reality.”

Breakout Labs also announced grants to Bell Biosystems and Entopsis, two companies who are working on “technology that can be introduced into therapeutic cells to track them using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) instruments” and “a low-cost, versatile, nano-engineered platform for diagnosing multiple diseases from a single sample” respectively.

Source: CNET