Last updated Nov 29, 2025
techscience
Over the long term, recombinant/synthetic-biology-based production methods will move far enough down the cost curve that they become ubiquitous for producing all major classes of proteins and cell types, displacing traditional animal-sourced production for those products.
eventually we'll get to that cost curve where they're ubiquitous for all proteins or for all types of cellsView on YouTube
Explanation

The prediction is explicitly long-term and open-ended — Friedberg says recombinant/synthetic-biology-based production will eventually become ubiquitous and displace traditional animal-sourced production for all major classes of proteins and cell types. As of November 30, 2025, this has clearly not happened yet (traditional animal agriculture still overwhelmingly dominates global protein supply; precision fermentation and cultivated meat remain niche and expensive), but the claim is about an unspecified future endpoint, not about being achieved by 2025.

Because:

  • Recombinant and precision‑fermentation proteins are growing (e.g., rennet, certain dairy proteins, specialty ingredients), but they are not close to being ubiquitous across all major protein and cell-type categories.
  • Cultivated (lab‑grown) meat is still pre‑mass‑market, with high costs and regulatory and scaling challenges, not a displacement of traditional animal production.

the only thing we can say is that the prediction has not yet come true, but it also cannot yet be judged definitively wrong, since its time horizon is unspecified and clearly beyond the present.

Therefore, the correct status is "inconclusive" (too early to tell) rather than right or wrong.