Difference between revisions of "Real Vegan Cheese"

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* [[Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications]]
* [[Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications]]
** A comparison between yeast bioreactors and dairy cows will be essential
** A comparison between yeast bioreactors and dairy cows will be essential
** [[Life Cycle Analyses]]
** Can we produce this cheese in a way that is (a) better for the environment, and (b) economically feasible? Check our page on [[Life Cycle Assessments and Techno-Economic Analyses]]


* Safety
* Safety

Revision as of 02:56, 20 June 2023

The goal of this project is to make real vegan cheese by engineering normal baker's yeast (S. cerevisiae) to express milk protein (casein), purifying the protein, creating a milk-substitute by blending in vegan replacements for lactose and milkfat, and finally turning the resulting milk-substitute into semi-hard cheese like gouda using the normal cheese-making process. Watch a brief video about the project.

The main challenges include:

  • Safety
    • Ensuring a safe and responsible research environment is already a key goal of CCL and BioC, but we will have to field potential safety concerns specifically related to the Real Vegan Cheese project.
    • Check out the Community Biology Safety Handbook, edited with help from some of our members.
  • Funding and spreading the word
    • We have raised about $37,000 on indiegogo and the funding we raised is being used on developing the feasibility of producing Real Vegan Cheese from baker's yeast.
  • Patents
    • We plan to patent and abandon to keep this technology free for everyone
  • Education
    • Providing hands-on lab training.
    • Check out our Educational Videos about many parts of the process!

Getting involved

So, you want to join the Real Vegan Cheese project? - Orientation for new folks - September 2022 blog post.

Here are some different ways to get involved:

Project topics