Lipid mediators of growth for cellular agriculture
Cellular agriculture aims to generate more sustainable approaches to the production of agricultural products, and this nascent field requires the development of new tools to enhance controlled cell growth. In this project, we will investigate the use of insect cell biomass to produce specific phospholipids that can be used to enhance cellular growth. We will examine known pathways that are activated by exogenous phospholipids in mammalian cells. We will determine optimal compositions and formulation of the lipids for stimulating cell growth in multiple cell lines. These studies will expand our understanding of important cell signaling pathways and provide improved methods to produce phospholipids and cellular biomass.