Scientists have grown a nugget-sized piece of chicken using a new method that can deliver nutrients and oxygen to artificial tissues, marking a major breakthrough in cultured meat.

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The scientists developed a bioreactor that mimicked a circulatory system, using 50 hollow fibers acting like veins to distribute nutrients and oxygen to the meat, keeping cells alive and guiding them to grow in the specified directions. This piece of chicken was not made using food-grade materials, and the scientists have not tasted it.

“It’s exciting to discover that these tiny fibers can also effectively help create artificial tissues,” Shoji Takeuchi, a co-author of the study and a professor at the University of Tokyo in Japan, said in a statement. Hollow fibers had previously been used in household water filters and dialysis machines for patients with kidney disease.

The new approach, he said, could be a scalable way to produce whole-cut cultured meat, adding that it could yield advancements not just in food production, but also regenerative medicine, drug testing and biohybrid robotics.