Biomaterials in Cellular Agriculture and Plant-Based Foods
A review of the materials science behind alternative proteins — co-authored by TUCCA’s David L. Kaplan with collaborators including computational-materials researcher Markus J. Buehler.
The Review
Authors: Edward B. Gordon, Inyoung Choi, Armaghan Amanipour, Yiwen Hu, Amin Nikkhah, Begum Koysuren, Champ Jones, Nitin Nitin, Reza Ovissipour, Markus J. Buehler, Nicole Tichenor Blackstone, David L. Kaplan.
Published in: Nature Reviews Materials (2025).
A survey of biomaterials for cultivated meat and plant-based foods.
What it covers
Section titled “What it covers”The review examines the materials science underpinning alternative proteins — scaffolds, hydrogels, and structuring approaches for cultivated meat alongside plant-based food systems. Relevant to TUCCA’s computational work, it situates computational and machine-learning methods — protein design and structure prediction, media and bioreactor optimization, and sensory/taste prediction — within alt-protein materials development, connecting wet-lab biomaterials with the data-driven methods that increasingly guide them (see the CAAIL library).
Reference
Section titled “Reference”Gordon, E. B., Choi, I., Amanipour, A., Hu, Y., Nikkhah, A., Koysuren, B., Jones, C., Nitin, N., Ovissipour, R., Buehler, M. J., Tichenor Blackstone, N., & Kaplan, D. L. (2025). Biomaterials in cellular agriculture and plant-based foods for the future. Nature Reviews Materials. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41578-025-00800-7
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