The Evolutionary Bond - Mycelium Scaffolds with Alice Millbank.

Alex Crisp talks to Alice Millbank, to explore one of the most intriguing ideas in cultivated meat: using mycelium—the fibrous root network of fungi as a natural scaffold for growing meat.

One of the biggest challenges in cultivated meat isn’t growing cells, but giving them structure. Muscle cells need something to attach to, align along, and mature on in order to become food with real texture. Alice’s research looks at how mycelium, which already forms complex, meat-like fibrous networks, could provide an edible, low-cost, and scalable solution.

We talk about why mycelium and animal cells seem to bond so naturally, and whether that compatibility hints at a deep evolutionary relationship between fungi and animals. From shared biological pathways to su ...