Cellular agriculture is an emerging field focused on producing animal and plant products from cultivated cells. This approach is particularly promising for animal protein production, offering substantial benefits that include enhanced sustainability and reduced land and water use without animal slaughter. However, significant technical and economic challenges remain, including dependence on animal-derived sera for cell expansion and differentiation, treatment of spent medium effluents, and development of new cell lines.

The INOVACEL project, led by a consortium composed of Necton, S2AQUAcoLAB, CCMAR, and GreenCoLab, addresses these challenges by leveraging microalgae as the cornerstone of a circular integrated production system. First, microalgae cultivation will be optimized using spent medium from cell cultivation, rich in bioavailable nitrogen and phosphorus. Different strains and cultivation conditions will be evaluated to maximize nutrient removal efficiency. Second, the resulting microalgal biomass will be processed through various techniques to create extracts rich in bioactive compounds for testing as partial or complete substitutes for animal-derived serum. Simultaneously, the project will develop new fish cell lines and adapt existing ones using microalgae-based sera, working towards establishing animal product-free cell lines.

This integrated approach aims to close both water and nutrient cycles, enhancing process circularity and sustainability while reducing operational costs.