A very quick thread on Impossible Foods for our good friend @FringeViews who was asking...
So some clues.
Let's start with the location of the windowless premises
No cows, obviously.
Not many amenities nearby, unless you're Kermit Gosnell.
google.com/maps/@37.74185…
But back to the product. Certainly VERY exciting. Impossible foods is so AMAZING because they claim to have produced the ingredient that make meat so tasty.
We're talking about hemoglobin (or haemoglobin for Brit peeps).
Vegans should look away now.
Seems such a simple molecule. I mean, we can synthesise spike proteins from viruses so we should be able to synthesise hemoglobin, right?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemoglobin
It's actually such a complicated molecule that there are a whole bunch of diseases where it goes wrong - either with production of heme (the central component) or hemoglobin itself.
And it's the main thing that keeps you alive when you lose blood and need a transfusion. It's the packed cells that contain the hemoglobin that you need for oxygen transfer.
Scientists have been trying for decades to reproduce it.
genengnews.com/topics/genome-…
Jehovah's witnesses know all about this because they cannot take another person's blood even if their lives depend on it. Synthetic blood substitutes have investigated for years but they are still not in general use.
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…
So hemoglobin - essentially the essence of the blood of life - is the holy grail of medicine. Yet it hasn't been possible to synthesise in quantities needed. It's just too difficult.
So along comes Rachel Z Fraser.
Here featured on "Scimoms"
scimoms.com/impossible-bur…
So, Rachel was working at Impossible Foods from 2012. Hmmm. She must have been quite young. A new post doc.
Who has just invented the holy grail of medicine?
I dunno, maybe the picture is wrong. Let's try google. Oh. Seems to be "Impossible" to find a good one...
Anyway, let's look on Pubmed. Remember that any major achievement in science is preceded by years of attempts. Very few things happen overnight despite what Bancel and Sahin might say.
She must have a huge portfolio.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=rachel+z…
Hang on, what?
3 papers?
The scientist who single handedly invented soyleghemoglobin?
No papers from her PhD at UC Berkley?
How about Researchgate?
Nope. Nothing before 2017.
researchgate.net/profile/Rachel…
This is an interesting article.
Some big hitters, even recruited from the NIH.
NIH?
Oh yes. The same NIH that funds @fredhutch and the Wuhan Institute of virology.
Nothing to see here.
archive.ph/wip/1Dvdo
So, what is "soyleghemoglobin"?
Who knows, because the only people that can tell you are the people that supposedly made it. In the windowless offices across the road from Planned Parenthood.
Thank God we have the @US_FDA to check it's real though.
forbes.com/sites/lanaband…
Fortunately it doesn't matter whether Rachel Fraser is the smartest and luckiest scientist in the world.
Or whether she is the Elizabeth Holmes of food.
Because there is always the photoshoot in celebrity media in case you get caught out...
12thblog.com/50-hot-elizabe…
BWAHAHAHAHA
faq.impossiblefoods.com/hc/en-au/artic…
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