Aleph Farms and BioRaptor partner to scale up cultivated meat production using AI

03 May 2024 --- Israel-based cellular agriculture and food technology company Aleph Farms has partnered with BioRaptor, pioneers in optimizing biotech processes using data and AI. The collaboration seeks to improve Aleph’s production process and de-risk its scale-up to commercial-sized facilities.

The AI will enhance data collection and analysis for Aleph Farms’ cultivated meat production R&D. BioRaptor’s solution enables real-time and historical data collection for a more cost-effective and smooth scale-up process.

“Deploying BioRaptor’s most advanced AI and machine learning solution into our R&D will provide additional support for our team to optimize processes for cost and scalability, laying a solid groundwork for our mid- to large-scale production. Our approach is to build the right foundations as we grow and avoid massive capital expenditure before our process is fully ready for scale,” says Dr. Neta Lavon, CTO and co-founder of Aleph Farms.

“We are investing time and resources to implement the most advanced tools into our differentiated technology platform and its various applications in food and beyond, thereby realizing the full potential of cellular agriculture in the burgeoning bioeconomy.”

Earlier this year, Aleph Farms joined forces with biotech firm BBGI and synbio researcher and manufacturer Fermbox Bio to initiate Thailand’s first plant for cultivated meat production.

Bioprocess data management
Integrating BioRaptor’s AI operating system into Aleph Farms’ process development will help to advance scalability and reduce costs in the production of Aleph Cuts in preparation for production in large-scale plants.

“There are massive amounts of data created during the development of state-of-the-art production bioprocesses, which, when extracted, interpreted, and collected into actionable insights, can boost productivity and reduce costs, time, and human error. This is exactly our plan with Aleph Farms,” says Ori Zakin, CEO and co-founder of BioRaptor. 

“By simplifying bioprocess data management and suggesting optimal experimental design, we can enable smoother technological developments for the processes that the cellular agriculture industry has been pioneering,” says Zakin.

Through this partnership, AI will complement human intelligence in collecting and analyzing “big data” generated throughout Aleph’s process development for cultivated meat production.

“Our team’s scientific expertise in the design of experiment methodology and statistical analysis, complemented by BioRaptor’s AI-driven solution, will allow us to better understand the interactions between various process inputs and conditions,” says Dr. Sagit Shalel-Levanon, senior director of process development at Aleph Farms.Aleph Farms is preparing to scale up the production of its cultivated meat. 

“With the large data we generate, this capability could accelerate the development of robust and scalable processes for cultivated meat production.”

In addition, Aleph Farms bypassed the European Union and headed straight to the Swiss authorities to seek regulatory approval for its cuts of cultured beef. It marked the first-ever application to sell cultivated meat in Europe, where some are beginning to push back against the burgeoning cell-based industry. The submission is part of Aleph’s collaboration with Migros, Switzerland’s largest food enterprise.

Cultivating animal cells
To produce cultivated meat, animal cell cultures are grown in cultivators that provide controlled, clean and closed environments where cells can thrive. These cultivators continuously feed the cells with nutrients and are monitored for various process parameters such as pH, dissolved oxygen and temperature. 

Understanding the relationship between the cell feed and the cell environment is vital to creating optimal conditions for cell growth. Integrating BioRaptor’s solutions into Aleph’s process development allows its R&D team to collect data as it is generated across various experiments, extrapolating both real-time and historic data concurrently.

The process will facilitate the smooth evaluation of cross-experimental findings and the configuration of the results on a single platform. The ability to review past and present data and make projections enhances experiments linked to scale-up.

BioRaptor and Aleph Farms will participate in AI and cellular agriculture panels at the SynBioBeta conference in San Jose, US, May 6–9.

By Inga de Jong