Meat production in the future faces several challenges. One challenge is to be able to meet the increasing demand for meat, in particular in rapidly developing "third world" countries. Another is to make meat production environmentally sustainable. Meat production contributes considerably to overall greenhouse gases, and the raising of the animal accounts for almost all of this contribution. Additionally, there are other problems related to consumer and public perception as well as ethics of today´s meat industry.

Tissue engineering of human skeletal muscle for regenerative medicine purposes continues to advance at a steady pace. Tissue engineering and cell culturing techniques have brought about new possibilities for meat production. There are today some laboratories around the world developing techniques to grow animal cells and skeletal muscle in bioreactors in order to produce edible meat products. Therefore, there is hope that in the not-too-distant future, we will know how to grow muscle tissue of sufficient size and quantities to be a viable food source.

"In vitro meat: Why and How" is only one among many other interesting subjects which will be discussed at the symposium, organized by Biomaterials Research Centre (BRC) at the University of Gothenburg, in cooperation with GöteborgBIO.

For complete program and abstracts, please visit www.goteborgbio.se

Other subjects to be discussed during the day are:
- interesting aspects related to bone replacement materials,

-the past, present and future for calcium phosphate based bioceramic,

- different aspects of the use of carbohydrates in biomedical research will be discussed, and processing of carbohydrate-based devices (e.g. scaffolds) for the purposes of tissue engineering will be presented.

- various novel technology strategies are also on the agenda!

Location: Academicum, Lecture Hall "Arvid Carlsson", Medicinaregatan 3, Göteborg

Time: 8.30 - 19.00

Date: Thursday, Nov. 19th, 2009

Organiser: BRC in cooperation with GöteborgBIO.

For more information, kindly contact:

Carina Johansson

Professor, Örebro Universitet

Chairperson, BRC, Göteborgs Universitet

Tel + 46 (0)739-8819 20

carina.johansson@oru.se

www.brc.org.gu.se

Helene Jaktling

Public Relations Officer, GöteborgBIO

Tel + 46 (0)730-66 09 22

helene.jaktling@goteborgbio.se

www.goteborgbio.se