Using CRISPR, researchers made a protein packed fungi that’s easier to stomach. The genetically engineered fungus that tastes like meat and could have a smaller environmental footprint than traditional livestock or even “lab-grown” cell-cultured meat.

Tired of turkey? Try gene edited, meat-like fungi.

Using CRISPR, researchers made a protein packed fungi that’s easier to stomach.

Using CRISPR gene editing technology, researchers from Jiangnan University in China took a fungus that is already used as a meat alternative (Fusarium venenatum) and tweaked its DNA to make it easier to digest and less resource-intensive to produce. The result, if brought up to scale, is a genetically engineered fungus that tastes like meat and could have a smaller environmental footprint than traditional livestock or even “lab-grown” cell-cultured meat. The study’s findings were published today in the journal Trends in Biotechnology.

“We successfully made a fungus not only more nutritious but also more environmentally friendly by tweaking its genes,” corresponding author and Jiangnan assistant professor Xiao Liu said in a statement. “Gene-edited foods like this can meet growing food demands without the environmental costs of conventional farming.”

This new, edited DNA strain required 44 percent less sugar to produce the same amount of protein as a non-genetically altered strain. It was also able to produce protein 88 percent faster than the original version. Using these figures as a starting point, the team simulated the environmental impact of producing their fungus at scale compared to traditional animal protein. While there’s many factors involved such as the type of agricultural infrastructure available to particular counties, the researchers reported that their genetically altered strain would require 70 percent less land to produce the same amount of protein as chickens.

Source: https://www.cell.com/trends/biotechnology/fulltext/S0167-7799(25)00404-4

Fungi is possibly one of the largest, versatile and variant organisms on the planet.
It’s pretty much alien compared to Homosapien DNA.
Possibly one of the riskiest organisms to try to manipulate.

Looks like it’s time for the latest iteration of “Live in the pod and eat the ~~bugs~~ fungus.”