Keynote Speakers
Dr. Mark Post
Maastricht University, Mosa Meat and Qorium
Mark Post obtained an MD and PhD in pharmacology from Utrecht University in 1989. He went on to serve as a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Dartmouth Medical School, Technical University Eindhoven, and Maastricht University. He has held the title of Professor of Vascular Physiology and Tissue Engineering at Maastricht University since 2002. In 2008, Mark joined a team of researchers, including Peter Verstrate, working on tissue engineering muscle for meat consumption. On August 5, 2013, he presented the world’s first cultured hamburger in London, marking a significant milestone in food technology and sustainability. In 2016, Mark Post and Peter Verstrate co-founded Mosa Meat to commercialize cultured meat. The company, which aims to produce sustainable and ethical meat alternatives, has grown rapidly and, as of September 2021, employs over 100 people. In addition to his work on cultured meat, Mark Post has also been involved with Qorium, a company focused on producing cultivated leather. At Qorium, he has applied his expertise in tissue engineering to develop sustainable leather alternatives, further contributing to environmentally friendly and ethical solutions in various industries. Mark Post continues to be a leading figure in the field of cultured meat and sustainable materials, advocating for innovative solutions to global challenges in food production and material sciences. His work addresses the environmental and ethical concerns of traditional livestock farming and leather production, paving the way for revolutionary changes in these industries.
Dr. Ilse fraeye
Meat Technology and Science of Protein-rich Foods, KU Leuven
Ilse Fraeye is an associate professor at KU Leuven Campus Ghent, specialized in meat technology and meat alternatives. She obtained her master’s degree in 2004 and her PhD in 2009, both at the Faculty of Bioscience Engineering at KU Leuven, specializing in Food Technology. Since 2012, she is affiliated to the research group Meat Technology and Science of Protein-rich Foods (MTSP) at KU Leuven Campus Ghent. Until recently, research at MTSP focused on the processing of meat products. In recent years, the research domain has broadened to include alternative protein sources. The research group has a well-equipped pilot plant and laboratory in which various types of protein-rich food products can be prepared and analyzed under strictly controlled conditions. Ilse Fraeye is a co-author of 70 peer-reviewed A1 publications (h-index: 31). She is a (co-)promotor of 5 finished and 7 ongoing PhD’s. She teaches several courses in food science and technology at the Faculties of Engineering Technology and Bioscience Engineering of KU Leuven.
Dr. NAnette Boyle
Chemical & Biological Engineering, Colorado School of Mines
Nanette Boyle is associate professor of chemical & biological engineering sat The Colorado School of Mines. She also currently serves as the director for the quantitative biosciences & engineering graduate program. The Boyle Laboratory focuses on the application of chemical engineering principles, systems biology and synthetic biology to interrogate biological systems with a special emphasis on metabolism. She received her PhD in chemical engineering from Purdue University in in 2009, where she was an NSF graduate research fellow. Nanette joined the faculty at Mines in 2013 after completing two postdoctoral fellowships at CU Boulder and UCLA. She is a DOE early career program awardee, a Scialog Fellow for Negative Emission Science and most recently a Fulbright Scholar in The Netherlands.
Dr. Iftach nachman
School of Neurobiology, Biochemistry and Biophysics, Tel Aviv University
Our lab has extensive experience in high throughput live imaging of cell populations undergoing dynamic processes of change. Early on I employed this approach to dissect timing variability in meiosis in budding yeast. At TAU, I expanded my scope to processes of differentiation and reprogramming in mammalian cells. In particular we have focused on reprogramming to pluripotency in 2D cultures, and differentiation of embryonic stem cells within 3D embryoid bodies. In the past 8 years we have been focused on stem-cell based embryo-like models (gastruloids), for both the study of development and for applications to cultivated meat. My lab hosts a combination of students from multiple backgrounds, most of which doing both experiment and computational analysis. I have developed (and taught in the past 15 years) courses on quantitative modeling of biological circuits, bioinformatics and linear algebra for life science students.
Dr. lenore newman
Food of Agriculture Institute, University of the Fraser Valley
Presentation title: Updating our protein portfolio: social and policy implications of cultivated meat
Lenore Newman is the Director of the Food and Agriculture Institute at the University of the Fraser Valley where she holds a full professorship and chair in Food and Agriculture Innovation, and is co-founder of a food consulting company. Dr. Newman is a past Canada Research Chair, Chairs the Council of Canadian Academy’s Atypical Agriculture Committee, and is an emeritus member of the Royal Society of Canada’s New College. She mentors in Creative Destruction Labs-Rockies agricultural stream and was a member of the BC Premier’s Food Security Task Force, sat on the BC Minister of Agriculture’s Advisory Committee, and is a member of the X-Prize Brain Trust. She works as a consulting fruit hunter and has been featured in the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The National Post, The Globe and Mail, and CNN. She co-leads the Demeter Projects National Agrifood Initiative with Dr. Evan Fraser of Guelph. Her award-winning books include Speaking in Cod Tongues, Lost Feast, and she is co-author of Dinner on Mars. She holds a BSc in Physics from the University of British Columbia, and a PhD in Environmental Studies from Toronto’s York University. She co-edited the collection “Cellular Agriculture: Technology, Society, Sustainability, and Science”.
Dr. Rachael floreani
Burlington Bio and University of Vermont
Presentation title: The Whey Forward: Nutrient-Rich Substrates for Meat Production
Dr. Floreani earned her BS degree in Biomedical Engineering from Michigan Technological University in 2004 and her MS and PhD degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Colorado State University in 2007 and 2009. After two years of post-doctoral work at the University of Washington, she started her position at UVM in 2011. Dr. Floreani has led interdisciplinary teams at biotech start-ups and in academia. She serves as an advisor to industry partners and female founders around the world. Dr. Floreani has been invited to speak at international conferences, has been interviewed by multiple news outlets, and has served on academic panels related to her research. Her translational research spans the biomedical, materials processing, and cellular agriculture fields, and has culminated in six granted patents, 40+ scientific articles, and an FDA approved implant available on the market. Dr. Floreani collaborates on research and product development across many fields, including tissue engineering, cultivated meat, cell culture media development, and biomaterials. Her other interests include sustainability, biomimicry, and the valorization of agricultural byproducts. Her mission is focused on generating translatable products that benefit both humankind and the planet. Dr. Floreani is also committed to community outreach and engineering education. She provides hands on experience in her laboratory to local high school students, and serves as a mentor to female and non-binary K-12 students interested in the STEM fields.
Jonas Gerson
PnuVax Inc
Jonas Elliott Gerson is a seasoned professional in vaccine development and biopharmaceutical production, with a focus on novel diagnostics and disruptive technologies capable of responding to emerging diseases and serving neglected populations worldwide. Gerson is now applying his experience in cell culture to the rapidly evolving field of cellular agriculture. He holds advanced degrees in Chemical Engineering with a specialization in Biochemical and Biomedical Engineering from Queen’s University. Gerson co-founded PnuVax in 2008 to fill gaps in vaccine and therapeutics access worldwide. For more than a decade, Gerson has been the COO and Head of Process Engineering at PnuVax, where he oversees a 15,000 m2 cGMP-capable large-scale biomanufacturing facility, operations, regulatory compliance, and the development of bioprocesses for various product including novel vaccines for pneumonia and yellow fever. Gerson also Co-Founded SaudiVax in 2015 toward the aim of increasing access to vaccines and therapeutics in the OIC. He led the design of the first domestic cGMP biomanufacturing facility in KSA, and he continues to develop large-scale commercial facilities there. During this work, he also played a key role in investigational monoclonal antibody treatments for MERS and SARS-CoV-2. Prior to PnuVax, Gerson consulted for therapeutic protein CMO, Celltrion, in Incheon, South Korea. He also conducted research at the Fuel Cell Research Centre in Kingston, Ontario, where he developed novel methods for producing micro-LSM electrodes and modeling hydrogen production processes. Early in his career, he worked at BioEngineering AG in Switzerland, gaining hands-on experience in biomanufacturing equipment assembly and inspection and design. Gerson is passionate about using the best available technologies to augment One Health through developing highly efficient solutions that increase and democratize access to food, medicine, energy, and other basic human rights.
Dr. Hanna Tuomisto
University of Helsinky & Natural Resources Institute Finland
Presentation title: Environmental impacts of cultivated meat: knowns, unknowns and unknowns unknowns
Hanna L. Tuomisto is a professor of sustainable food systems at the University of Helsinki and at the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke). She leads the Future Sustainable Food Systems -research group at the University of Helsinki. Tuomisto’s research interests are focused on the development of sustainability assessment methods and estimating the potential of different approaches (e.g. emerging food technologies, dietary change and agroecological farming) to improve the sustainability of food systems. She has a strong experience in the development and use of environmental sustainability assessment methods, such as life cycle assessment and carbon footprinting. Tuomisto started to carry out research about environmental impacts of cultured meat already in 2008 and published the first life cycle assessment of the technology in 2011. Currently, Tuomisto leads and is involved in various projects related to sustainability cell-cultured foods and other alternatives to animal source foods, sustainable agriculture and the development of sustainability assessment methods (e.g. inclusion of soil carbon changes, biodiversity impacts, nutritional aspects and consequential impacts in life cycle assessment). Tuomisto holds an MSc degree in Agroecology from the University of Helsinki and a doctoral degree from the University of Oxford. In her doctoral degree, she compared environmental impacts of organic, conventional and integrated farming systems. After finishing her doctoral degree, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) where she was involved in projects that developed carbon footprint and environmental footprint methods for agriculture and food sector. In 2016-2017, Tuomisto worked as postdoctoral researcher at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) where her work focused on the links between environmental change, nutrition and health. Tuomisto started to build her research group at the University of Helsinki in 2017.