Using space-age technology to make “meat” out of thin air is science, not fiction mercurynews.com

Berkeley-based startup Air Protein makes a meat alternative, see here n in tacos, using NASA-inspired technology to transform carbon dioxide into protein. (Courtesy of Air Protein)

A Berkeley-based startup Air Protein now makes meat alternative using NASA-inspired fermentation technology to transform CO2 — what we exhale into the air — into a complete edible protein.

While other well-known meat alternative companies like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat make plant-based protein from soy and peas, Air Protein is the first to make “air-based” protein by farming carbon from the air with microbes. The startup’s recent $32 million Series A funding round, closed in January and led by investors ADM Ventures, Barclays and GV (formerly Google Ventures), secures its spot in the rapidly expanding field of meatless meat in the new wave of alternative protein technology — fermentation.

Founder & CEO Dr. Lisa Dyson, an award-winning research physicist and strategy consultant, hopes Air Protein’s technology will “create the most sustainable meat available and significantly reduce the burden on our planet’s resources that is being caused by our current meat production processes,” she said in an email.

In a 2016 TED talk, Dyson asked the audience to “Imagine you are a part of a crew of astronauts traveling to Mars or some distant planet. How would you feed that crew of astronauts with limited resources in the closed system of a spaceship?” That’s the question NASA scientists asked in the 1960s that led them to the discovery that microbes could convert CO2 into food for astronauts.

Using fermentation tanks, which Dyson refers to as “vertical protein farms,” in a process similar to making yogurt or wine, Air Protein combines “elements from the air we breathe — carbon dioxide, oxygen, and nitrogen (with) water and mineral nutrients,” the company says. Renewable energy powers their proprietary probiotic production process by which the microbes convert CO2 into amino acids. The final product is a protein-rich flour that can be used just like soy or pea flour. This protein flour can then be made into a plethora of delicious and nutritious meatless meat products.

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