Cultivating the cell-cultured breastmilk

Melbourne: Science has made impressive gains in the art of producing animal products minus the animal. Now this emerging field of cellular agriculture is taking on its biggest challenge yet: breastmilk. Breastmilk is a complex substance, and breastfeeding is even more complicated. We are a long way from recreating it in its entirety. It’s one […]

Melbourne: Science has made impressive gains in the art of producing animal products minus the animal. Now this emerging field of cellular agriculture is taking on its biggest challenge yet: breastmilk.

Breastmilk is a complex substance, and breastfeeding is even more complicated. We are a long way from recreating it in its entirety.

It’s one thing to produce a chicken nugget or even a whole-cut steak via cellular agriculture, but providing a developing child with every nutrient they need for the first year of life is another.

But cell-cultured breastmilk could soon help non-breastfeeding parents who want a better option than existing formulas based on cows’ milk.

How to make breastmilk

Breastmilk cultivation has many similarities with the production of cultured meat. The basic steps are as follows.

First you need some of the milk-producing cells that line the breast ducts. These “mammary epithelial cells” can be cultured from donated milk.Then you grow the cells in flasks with nutrients, allowing them to multiply.

Once you have enough cells to behave like healthy breast tissue, you transfer them to a bioreactor (a larger vessel of nutrients) with a similar structure to the mammary duct. Next, you add a hormone called prolactin to the bioreactor. This gives the cells the green light for milk secretion on one side while absorbing nutrients on the other.

Finally, you perform quality control and safety screening. Eventually, further supplements naturally found in breastmilk could be added, such as beneficial antibodies and bacteria or even immune cells and stem cells.

‘Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food’ Breastmilk sets the brain, immune system and metabolism on a lifelong course of improved cognitive function, and reduced infection and chronic disease. For babies who are premature or sick, the value of breastmilk is particularly pronounced.

Breastmilk comprises an optimal balance of water, carbohydrates, fats, proteins, and micronutrients, along with a mix of maternal immune cells, stem cells, antibodies, and healthy bacteria that seed the child’s gut microbiome. Breastmilk also changes over time to meet the changing needs of the developing child. It may even directly help with infections. When pathogens from the baby’s upper respiratory tract enter the mammary duct, the mother can mount an immune response and feed targeted immune cells and antibodies back to the child.