Home Bioreactor: Local Food from Plant Cell Cultures
Home Bioreactor is a countertop appliance that allows users to cultivate plant cells at home. The appliance works with starter cell cultures that come in a small pouch. The user only adds water, and within a week the Home Bioreactor produces around 500 grams of fresh plant cells that can be used like a smoothie ingredient or eaten like berries as a nutritious part of everyday healthy nutrition. With the Home Bioreactor, even rare or hard-to-harvest plants can be cultivated as single-cell cultures without harming their natural habitat, providing year-round, weather-independent production. This concept was developed with VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.
Early-stage prototypes of a home bioreactor incorporating 3D-printed elements displayed in a laboratory setting.
The operational model actively cultivates Rubus arcticus plant cells within.