Visual Technologies Are Critical to Discovering New Food Proteins and Hopefully A More Sustainable Future
/At LDV Capital, we invest in people building businesses powered by visual technology. We thrive on collaborating with deep technical teams who leverage computer vision, machine learning and artificial intelligence to analyze visual data. Every summer we complete in-depth research for our annual LDV insights reports. These reports are a deep dive into a specific industry and the visual technologies that we believe will be critical to the future of that industry.
Our past reports range from forecasted that 45 Billion Cameras by 2022 by 2020 Fuel Business Opportunities, Nine Sectors Where Visual Technologies Will Improve Healthcare by 2028, Visual Technologies Enable a Bright Future for Manufacturing & Logistics. This year’s report is all about food & agriculture. Our team reviewed visual technologies driving innovation in 15 sectors.
Muscle cells viewed via microscopy © Dr. Mark Post/University of Maastricht
I have been neck-deep in all things protein. Why proteins? Alternative proteins are clearly having a moment. You can purchase an Impossible Burger or Beyond Burger at major fast food chains across the US. And alternative protein companies have raised a combined $1.5 billion in the first six months of 2020. But my fixation on protein goes a bit deeper. Proteins are the building blocks of most everything in life. Technically speaking, proteins are macromolecules consisting of one or more long chains of amino acids. And while proteins make up much more than just the food we eat—such as antibodies, insulin, and growth hormone, to name a few—our food system is on the brink of a crisis with our growing population and demand for more sustainable sources of food. With the help of visual technology, discovering and creating new proteins will broaden the scope of what we eat and provide more sustainable options.
After speaking to countless experts in the space—from researchers to founders of new ventures—I am confident that in the next five years, macromolecular imaging, computational protein design, and microscopy will be instrumental in the discovery of new proteins and the furthering of cellular agriculture.
Macromolecular imaging and computational protein design help us discover and create new proteins
Macromolecular imaging enables the viewing and discovery of new proteins. Macromolecular imaging is the viewing of structures of cells, using confocal microscopy, light microscopy, fluorescence microscopy, and/or scanning electron microscopy. This technology allows for the close examination of the structure of various plants and their proteins and is already being used by startups like Shiru.
“Macromolecular imaging is going to be instrumental in the success of finding, understanding, and characterizing new proteins.” - Dr. Jasmin Hume, Founder & CEO of Shiru
But discovering proteins isn’t the only option. Computational protein design allows scientists to create their own from scratch. Computational protein design is the designing and testing of new sequences of protein. By visualizing proteins on the molecular level, we can redesign proteins to fit new needs, such as specific flavors and tastes.
“Analyzing and visualizing on a molecular level the 3D structures and the movements of proteins enables the redesign of proteins that fit the mass food market as to health, taste, stability, and cost.” - Ilan Samish, CEO at Amai Proteins
These new proteins can be used to replace animal protein in a variety of use-cases
Both macromolecular imaging and computational protein design are being used to study and reproduce other enzymes such as rennet, a key component in thickening milk into cheese curds. Rennet was the first-ever genetically engineered enzyme approved by the FDA in 1990.
Rennet is an enzyme typically found in the stomach lining of a calf, ewe, or baby goat, but by deploying macromolecular imaging and computational protein design, we have discovered both plant-based rennet and lab-grown rennet. Both have been widely adopted by the cheesemaking industry because they are purer, more reliable and cost-effective.
Lab-grown rennet is produced via cellular agriculture. Cellular agriculture is the production of agricultural products from cultured cells. There are two types of products made from cellular ag: acellular products, like rennet, cultured from organic molecules and cellular products grown from living cells, such as lab-grown meat.
Microscopy makes cellular agriculture possible
Visual technology plays an important role in cellular agriculture as well. Microscopy, or the viewing and imaging of cells on the microscopic level, is crucial to the discovery phase of cellular ag. In lab-grown meat, for example, a tissue sample is taken from a live animal, which is then examined and used to create cell lines. Cell lines proliferate in bioreactors until lab-grown meat is created.
©LDV Capital Insights 2020
Computational protein design is already being deployed by startups like Amai Proteins to create new protein-based sugar substitutes that are targeted at disrupting the $142b sugar manufacturing market.
“Imaging on a molecular and cellular level combined with machine learning and AI will play important roles in the future of cellular agriculture. Both are crucial in analyzing the data we collect and making sure we understand what we interpret into that data.” - Dr. Patricia Bubner, Founder & CEO, Orbillion Bio, Inc.
For lab-grown meat, microscopy is being deployed to help companies find opportunities to reduce the need for growth factors. Growth factors are food for the cultured cells that enable them to proliferate and are currently one of the highest costs in lab-grown meat production.
Lab-grown meat has additional challenges, such as structure. Some companies in the sector have attempted to use bioprinting to build structured meat like steak, but that approach has yet to be successful, so the industry is limited to ground meat for the foreseeable future. Furthermore, lab-grown meat faces an uphill battle with consumer acceptance. According to a study done by Michigan State University, 48% of people were unlikely to purchase lab-grown meat.
© JUST
Unlike lab-grown meat, however, consumers are already eating new proteins discovered and created with macromolecular imaging and computational protein design. In fact, one company, JUST, already has an egg replacement on the market and has raised $220M, and they’re just the beginning. We at LDV Capital predict many other startups will enter the space in the next five years.
We are always looking to partner and invest in brilliant people. Reach out if you are building a startup in this sector which is leveraging some visual technologies.
