Test-tube beef good news for cattle

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A volunteer is being sought to be the first person to eat a "test-tube" hamburger.

The burger, made with beef grown from stem cells, is less than a year away from being produced, Dutch scientists say.

They believe it could pave the way for eating meat without the need to slaughter animals.

The scientists are developing a burger which will be grown from 10,000 stem cells extracted from cattle, which are left in the lab to multiply more than a billion times to produce muscle tissue similar to beef.

The "vitro meat" is touted as the answer to the world's food problems, with demand for meat forecast to double in the next 40 years.

Mark Post, a professor at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, said: "I don't see any way you could rely on old-fashioned livestock in the coming decades. In vitro meat will be the only choice left. We are trying to prove to the world we can make a product out of this, and we need a courageous person who is willing to be the first to taste it.

"If no one comes forward, then it might be me."

Professor Post told Scientific American magazine that he thought the first test-tube burger could be made within 12 months.

In 2009, scientists from the same university grew strips of pork using the same method. But it was grey had had a similar texture to calamari.

Fish fillets have been grown in a New York laboratory using cells taken from goldfish muscle tissue, Sydney's Daily Telegraph reported.

- Staff reporter