Students from the Faculties of Science and Mathematics at the University of Waterloo in Canada have received over $700,000 in grants from Good Food Institute (GFI), Mitacs and New Harvest.

The funding will be used to expand research in advancing cultivated seafood with AI.

The research is part of Waterloo University’s ‘Alt Protein Project’, a global network of over 60 student-led organisations supported by the GFI, which aims to establish the large-scale production of cultured seafood.

Using AI, the researchers hope to predict and enhance cell behaviour and create genomic and proteomic profiles, employing multi-omics technologies and using single-cell RNA sequencing to gain insights into the cellular makeup of fish.

The collected data will be used to develop models for gene regulation, cell growth and development – these models will help address challenges in cultured seafood production, including formulating optimised animal-free serum media, inducing cell immortalisation and improving cell proliferation and differentiation on a large scale.

Nathan Ahlgrim, a member of GFI's Alt Protein Program team, said: "We are so proud of the Waterloo APP team. A number of news outlets have already shared the university's press release about the project. In brief, these students enacted the best possible scenario for what we hope for in our 'research' objective. They identified a whitespace in alternative protein research and built a network around them to grow the research project beyond what any student group could do on their own."

The researchers will publicly share all collated data on a ‘cultivated meat atlas’ platform to support broader research efforts.

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