Cultivated meat starts with a few animal cells in a tank of nutrient broth. Sugar and amino acids alone won't get them growing, though. Cells also need signals telling them it's time to eat and divide, and insulin is one of the most important. The catch is that insulin is delicate, a bit like ice cream. Warm it up, and it spoils. Leave it sitting in liquid, and it starts to clump. Every one of those weaknesses adds cost, and when you're feeding cells by the thousands of liters, the costs pile up fast.
A Six-Piece Bridge Holds It Together
Insulin is made of two short protein strands, called A and B. Your body builds it as one long strand with a connector piece in the middle, then snips that connector out. Copying this process in a factory means an extra snipping step.
In a newly published patent application (WO2026167391A1), Sticta Biologicals skips the snip. The filing describes keeping both strands joined by a tiny bridge just six building blocks long, borrowed from the original connector. Think of swapping a long rope for a short, sturdy clip. In Figure 1, that clip is the short black strand running across the top of the right-hand model.
Figure 1. Natural insulin (left) next to Sticta’s one-piece bM2 (right). The black bridge joins the two strands, and the spheres mark stability tweaks. (Patent figure, adjusted by Lab Grown Technologies for clarity)
Yeast can then produce the insulin in one piece, ready to use. That clip does more than hold things together. It covers the greasy, water-repelling patches that make insulin clump, while staying flexible enough for the insulin to fit into the cell's receptor like a key into a lock. The team built versions using cow, chicken, pig, and sheep insulin, so the insulin can match the animal being grown. They then used AI to sketch 89 new designs and kept the five most promising. One of them, bM2-664, came out of the yeast in such quantity that it showed up plainly on a standard lab test, no special detection needed. The filing also describes heating samples to 45°C and 60°C for a full week, then checking whether they could still get cells growing.
From a Chilean Lab to the Cultivation Tank
Sticta Biologicals, founded in Santiago in 2021, uses yeast as tiny factories to make proteins for cultivated meat, food, and agriculture. The company has already launched its first product, Smart Insulin, and reports early sales to cultivated meat companies. This filing shows the engineering behind an insulin built to survive the trip from factory to tank. Congratulations and a warm thank you to the inventors: Vicente Cataldo, Fernando Gutiérrez, Andrés Ariztía, and Eduardo Agosin, for giving one of biology's most familiar hormones a sturdier new shape.
About the Author
I’m Kandice Vincent, a writer and editor covering cellular agriculture, food tech, and the future of how we produce and consume food. I work closely with founders, researchers, and mission-driven companies to turn complex science into something people can actually understand. I care deeply about where food is headed, how we get there, and who’s shaping that future. Based in Mexico, I’m usually writing with my rescue dog Taco nearby, who remains unimpressed by patents but highly invested in mealtimes.
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