2015年，兩位普林斯頓大學(xué)的博士生尼爾?奧佐諾夫和亞歷山大?勞瑞斯塔尼申請(qǐng)到了舊金山的生物技術(shù)加速器項(xiàng)目IndieBio。他們的目標(biāo)是設(shè)計(jì)一種能產(chǎn)生大量蛋白質(zhì)的微生物，以滿足一些特殊用途。他們當(dāng)時(shí)認(rèn)為，這種微生物或許能應(yīng)用于制藥科學(xué)，比如用來(lái)制造胰島素等。

不過(guò)Indiebio加速的聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人萊恩?貝森科特卻鼓勵(lì)道，他們應(yīng)該考慮如何將這種蛋白質(zhì)作為一種產(chǎn)品應(yīng)用于食品領(lǐng)域。

貝森科特解釋道：“胰島素已經(jīng)不新鮮了，現(xiàn)在其他人也能做胰島素，所以你必須轉(zhuǎn)型?！蹦敲此麄冝D(zhuǎn)向了什么開創(chuàng)性的領(lǐng)域？答案是不含動(dòng)物成分的明膠。明膠一般是用膠原蛋白制成的，而膠原蛋白一般來(lái)自豬、牛等動(dòng)物的骨骼和皮膚等組織。他們選擇的這個(gè)新方向，也令本身就是素食者的貝森科特興奮不已。

生物科技這門科學(xué)原本是大型制藥企業(yè)的專寵，主要用來(lái)生產(chǎn)一些高價(jià)值的商品——比如胰島素等。但隨著DNA測(cè)序等生物技術(shù)的相關(guān)成本大幅下降，生物科技的研究對(duì)象也越發(fā)多樣化。同時(shí)生物燃料的興起也進(jìn)一步促進(jìn)了行業(yè)經(jīng)濟(jì)的重新洗牌。幾乎一夜之間，生物反應(yīng)器等設(shè)備的價(jià)格已經(jīng)不再高不可攀了。因此，生物科技也不再局限于制造高價(jià)格的藥品，而是也可以制造食品這樣的大宗產(chǎn)品。

奧佐諾夫和勞瑞斯塔尼最后創(chuàng)辦了一家名叫Geltor的公司，它也是舊金山灣區(qū)少數(shù)采用發(fā)酵技術(shù)生產(chǎn)動(dòng)物制品的創(chuàng)業(yè)公司之一。這家公司的創(chuàng)新性在于，他們生產(chǎn)的動(dòng)物制品并不需要宰殺任何動(dòng)物。另外，還有兩家由IndieBio支持的創(chuàng)業(yè)公司Clara Foods和Perfect Day也在利用類似的技術(shù)生產(chǎn)蛋白和乳蛋白。他們的生產(chǎn)工藝中需要使用細(xì)胞，但他們的最終產(chǎn)品中卻并沒(méi)有細(xì)胞，這種產(chǎn)品也稱為非細(xì)胞產(chǎn)品。（相比之下，Memphis Meat和MosaMeat等創(chuàng)業(yè)公司則主要研究細(xì)胞產(chǎn)品，也就是最終產(chǎn)品中包含細(xì)胞本身。）

當(dāng)你走進(jìn)一家研究這種細(xì)胞農(nóng)業(yè)技術(shù)的創(chuàng)業(yè)公司時(shí)，你首先會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)他們的實(shí)驗(yàn)室里彌漫著一股濃濃的發(fā)酵的味道。Clara公司的CEO阿圖羅?埃利桑多解釋道，酵母菌就像一座座小工廠，只要對(duì)它們進(jìn)行“編程”，它們幾乎能造出任何東西，而且它們對(duì)整個(gè)發(fā)酵過(guò)程至關(guān)重要。

在這些實(shí)驗(yàn)室里，科學(xué)家會(huì)從基因上對(duì)酵母菌或細(xì)菌進(jìn)行修改，然后用糖分喂養(yǎng)它們，使它們的分子結(jié)構(gòu)變得與膠原蛋白（用來(lái)制作明膠）或是酷蛋白和乳清蛋白（用來(lái)制作奶酪）完全相同。在發(fā)酵過(guò)程的最后，這些蛋白質(zhì)會(huì)從混合物中提純出來(lái)。

最后的產(chǎn)品雖然用基因工程做出來(lái)的，但科學(xué)家并不認(rèn)為它是一種轉(zhuǎn)基因生物，因?yàn)榭茖W(xué)家們會(huì)把所有轉(zhuǎn)基因的酵母菌都清除掉。那么消費(fèi)者會(huì)不會(huì)對(duì)此感到不適呢？對(duì)此，奧佐諾夫表示：“自然界生產(chǎn)膠原蛋白的方式其實(shí)要比這惡心得多?！?

本文的另一版本載于2017年12月15日刊的《財(cái)富》雜志。

In 2015 Nick Ouzounov and Alexander Lorestani applied to the San ?Francisco–based biotech accelerator IndieBio. The two Princeton Ph.D.s had an idea for a way to engineer a microbe that could build vast amounts of protein designed for specific functions. They envisioned that it could have biopharma applications, such as being used to produce insulin.

But Ryan Bethencourt, who cofounded the accelerator, instead encouraged them to focus on using the protein for a product in the food space.

“Insulin was an old play. There are other people who can make insulin,” Bethencourt explains. “You have to be transformative.” The groundbreaking idea that they went with? Animal-free gelatin, which in its regular form is derived from collagen—a material that is typically made from the bones, skin, and tissues of cows and pigs. The reaction from Bethencourt, who is himself a vegan: “Brilliant.”

Biotech was once a tool reserved for pharmaceutical giants making high-value goods—just like insulin. But there’s a shift that’s taken place as biotech’s associated costs, such as DNA sequencing, have plummeted. The biofuel bust has helped further reshuffle the economics of the industry. All of a sudden bioreactors and other equipment have become available for cheap. The result is that biotech is no longer reserved just for producing high-priced medicine but could start to make sense for commodity products like food.

Ouzounov and Lorestani ended up cofounding Geltor, one of a handful of Bay Area startups using a biotech process called fermentation to make animal products. The transformative part is they don’t need the animals to do it. Fellow IndieBio-backed startups Clara Foods and Perfect Day are using the method to make egg whites and milk proteins, respectively. They use cells as part of their production method but there are no cells in the end result—what’s called an acellular product. (In contrast, startups Memphis Meats and MosaMeat are working on cellular products, in which the end result contains the cells themselves.)

One obvious tell that you are visiting a startup working on this form of cellular agriculture is the yeasty smell that hits you as you walk into one of their labs. Yeast are like little factories, explains Clara CEO Arturo Elizondo. They can be programmed to make essentially anything and are critical to fermentation.

In these labs scientists genetically modify yeast or bacteria and feed them sugars to produce a protein that’s molecularly identical to collagen (in the case of gelatin) or casein and whey (for cheese). At the end of the process that protein is purified out of the mixture.

The end result is made using genetic engineering, but is not considered a genetically modified organism since scientists remove the altered yeast. Will consumers be freaked out by the process? “The natural way of making gelatin is much more disturbing,” says Ouzounov.

A version of this post appears as a sidebar in the article “Silicon Valley and the Search for Meatless Meat” in the Dec. 15, 2017 issue of Fortune.