Willem Frederik van Eelen (4 July 1923 – 24 February 2015) was a Dutch researcher and businessperson, who pioneered the creation and development of

cultured meat Cultured meat, also known as cultivated meat among other names, is a form of cellular agriculture wherein meat is produced by culturing animal cells ''in vitro''; thus growing animal flesh, molecularly identical to that of conventional meat, ou ...

. He is recognized as one of the "godfathers of cultured meat".

Biography

Van Eelen was born in the

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies (; ), was a Dutch Empire, Dutch colony with territory mostly comprising the modern state of Indonesia, which Proclamation of Indonesian Independence, declared independence on 17 Au ...

on 4 July 1923, the son of a doctor. He served in the army in Indonesia during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Following the loss of the Dutch colony to the Japanese, Van Eelen was captured and spent the remainder of the war as a prisoner. His experiences of cruelty and hardship in multiple prisoner of war camps informed his later perception of the world. Van Eelen studied psychology at the

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, ) is a public university, public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Established in 1632 by municipal authorities, it is the fourth-oldest academic institution in the Netherlan ...

after the war and after attending a lecture on the preservation of meat, he came up with the idea of growing meat in a laboratory. Van Eelen was not a vegetarian, but cared strongly about the way that animals are treated and felt that " owing meat without inflicting pain seemed a natural solution." Following his graduation, Van Eelen attended medical school where he connected with research scientists and biologists in the hope of developing his idea into reality. He dropped out after one of his tutors said that if he was serious about his idea, he would need to raise money to fund research. Van Eelen ran a succession of restaurants and art galleries, with his wife, and they saved whatever spare money they had, to put towards the development of his idea. By the 1990s, with the help of several investors, Van Eelen raised . His first patent was filed in 1994, with several more following. In 2014, Van Eelen suffered a stroke and was hospitalized. He died in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

on 24 February 2015, at the age of 91. He was buried in

Noordwijk Noordwijk () is a town and municipality in the west of the Netherlands, in the provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland. The municipality covers an area of of which is water and had a population of in . On 1 January 2019, the f ...

Biography

References

Further reading