Meatball from woolly mammoth cultured in the Netherlands

A giant meatball made from flesh cultivated using the DNA of an extinct woolly mammoth was unveiled at the Nemo science museum in the Netherlands, Reuters reported. The meatball was created by the Australian in vitro meat company Vow, with the aim of bringing cultured meat into the public debate as a more sustainable alternative to real meat. “We wanted to create something that was totally different from anything you can get now,” Vow founder Tim Noakesmith told Reuters, adding that another reason for the choosing mammoth is that scientists believe the animal’s extinction was caused by climate change. The meatball was made from sheep cells into which a single gene from the mammoth, myoglobin, has been inserted.

“When it comes to meat, myoglobin is responsible for the aroma, the colour and the taste”, James Ryall, Vow’s Chief Scientific Officer explained. Since the mammoth’s DNA sequence obtained by Vow had a few gaps, African elephant DNA was inserted to complete it. “Much like they do in the movie Jurassic Park”, Ryall said, stressing the biggest difference is that they were not creating actual animals. While creating cultured meat usually means using blood of a dead calf, Vow used an alternative, meaning no animals were killed in the making of the mammoth meatball. The meatball, which is said to have the aroma of crocodile meat, is currently not for consumption. “Its protein is literally 4,000 years old. We haven’t seen it in a very long time. That means we want to put it through rigorous tests, something that we would do with any product we bring to the market,” Noakesmith said.