With the increasing global demand for meat, cultured meat technologies are emerging, offering more sustainable solutions that aim to evade a future shortage of meat. Here, we demonstrate a cultured meat platform composed of edible microcarriers and an oleogel-based fat substitute. Scalable expansion of bovine mesenchymal stem cells on edible chitosan-collagen microcarriers is optimized to generate cellularized microtissues. In parallel, an oleogel system incorporated with plant protein is developed as a fat substitute, which is comparable to beef fat in appearance and texture. Combining the cellularized microtissues with the developed fat substitute, two types of cultured meat prototypes are introduced: layered cultured meat and burger-like cultured meat. While the layered prototype benefits enhanced stiffness, the burger-like prototype has a marbling meat-like appearance and a softer texture. Overall, this platform and the established technological basis may contribute to the development of different cultured meat products and promote their commercial production.

Cell encapsulation is a promising approach for long‐term delivery of therapeutic agents. Nonetheless, this system has failed to reach clinical settings, as the entrapped cells provoke a host immune reaction. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), however, potentially may overcome this impediment and serve as a promising platform for cell‐based microencapsula‐tion. They are known to be hypoimmunogenic and can be genetically modified to express a variety of therapeutic factors. We have designed alginate‐PLL micro‐capsules that can encapsulate human MSCs (hMSCs) for extended periods, as demonstrated by fluorescence and H ³ ‐thymidine assays. The encapsulated hMSCs maintained their mesenchymal surface markers and differentiated to all the typical mesoderm lineages. In vitro and in vivo immunogenicity studies revealed that encapsulated hMSCs were significantly hypoimmuno‐genic, leading to a 3‐fold decrease in cytokine expression compared to entrapped cell lines. The efficacy of such systems was demonstrated by genetically modifying the cells to express the hemopexin‐like protein (PEX), an inhibitor of angiogenesis. Live imaging and tumor measurements showed that encapsulated hMSC‐PEX injected adjacent to glioblastoma tumors in nude mice led to a significant reduction in tumor volume (87%) and weight (83%). We clearly demonstrate that hMSCs are the cell of choice for microencapsulation cell based‐therapy, thus bringing this technology closer to clinical application.—Goren, A., Dahan, N., Goren, E., Baruch, L., Machluf, M. Encapsulated human mes‐enchymal stem cells: a unique hypoimmunogenic platform for long‐term cellular therapy. FASEB J . 24, 22–31 (2010). www.fasebj.org