2nd International Cellular Agriculture Conference

Keynote Speakers Include:

Margareth Øverland
Professor in aquaculture nutrition at NMBU and
Center Director of a Center for Research-based Innovation (CRI), Foods of Norway.

Keynote: Upcycling underutilized forestry biomass into high-value microbial protein sources for aquafeeds

Professor Margareth Øverland has more than 30 years’ experience in animal nutrition research from academia and industry, including leading a Centre of Excellence on alternative protein sources and coordinating many national and international projects in sustainable feed development for aquaculture. She is Centre Director of the innovation centre Foods of Norway at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU). Ongoing research includes developing sustainable protein and lipid sources by upcycling underutilized natural resources and waste streams into microbial ingredients with novel biotechnology. Margareth has BSc and MSc degrees in animal nutrition from Montana State University, USA, PhD studies at the University of Minnesota, USA, and a PhD in animal nutrition from NMBU.

Christiaan Kalk

MSc, Sensior Consultant, Food Safety, Health and Regulations
Isbi | Life Science-based Innovations
Oosterbeek, The Netherlands

Keynote: A proactive approach to risk assessment and regulatory compliance in cellular agriculture

Christiaan Kalk graduated in biology at Groningen University, The Netherlands, in 1987. For more than two decades, he was responsible for sales and marketing of contract research within the Dutch organization TNO, as well as project management and consultancy in regulatory affairs, testing strategy, life sciences and communication. In 2017, Christiaan founded lsbi | life science-based innovations. In collaboration with experts in areas including toxicology, nutrition, pharmacology, analytical chemistry, microbiology and biotechnology, Christiaan serves clients in the international life sciences industry, with an emphasis on food applications of biotechnology. Experience, independence and commitment to innovation for health and sustainability form the cornerstones of lsbi. As a consulting practice, lsbi serves start-up and established companies, as well as investors

Marie Gibbons

CSO and Co-Founder of Re:meat, Sweden

Keynote: Destination $1/kg for cultivated meat: Optimizing production efficiency and key considerations for scaling up

Marie Gibbons stands among the trailblazers of the cultivated meat industry, driven by a commitment to create a better alternative to traditional industrial animal agriculture. She earned her Master's Degree with a focus on large-scale muscle formation through collaborations with NC State University, Tufts University, and Harvard Medical School. Her pioneering research received funding from both New Harvest and the Good Food Institute.

Following her academic pursuits, Marie joined Upside Foods in San Francisco, where she spearheaded the establishment of their media development department. She achieved a milestone by creating an efficient serum-free media formulation. Transitioning to Vow in Sydney, she delved into diverse species and cell types, broadening her expertise. After a brief period of consulting, Marie's bold and impact-driven journey led her to relocate to Sweden, where she co-founded Re:meat and currently serves as the Chief Science Officer. At Re:meat, she is instrumental in developing a revolutionizing process system, with the ambition to produce the world’s most low-cost cultivated meat and establishing Scandinavia's first large-scale localized production of cultivated beef.

Matthias Kaiser

Professor Emeritus at the Center for the Study of the Sciences and Humanities (SVT) at the University of Bergen, and Prof. II (10%) at the NTNU in Trondheim

Keynote: Ethics and value-choices in developing in-vitro meat

Matthias Kaiser is Professor Emeritus at the Center for the Study of the Sciences and Humanities (SVT) at the University of Bergen, and Prof. II (10%) at the NTNU in Trondheim, having studied mathematics and philosophy (of science) at the universities of Munich, Oslo, Stanford and Frankfurt. He is also an Affiliated Fellow at the Koi Tū: Centre for Informed Futures, University of Auckland, and Editor-in-Chief of the Springer journal Food Ethics. Presently he is Senior Researcher at NORSUS: Norwegian Institute for Sustainability Research. His areas of expertise include philosophy of science (Dr.phil.), ethics of science, food ethics, technology assessment and science-for-policy. His topics of interest include but are not restricted to aquaculture, seafood and food ethics, value studies, the precautionary principle, uncertainty & complexity, practical ethics, integrity in science, and public participation.

Kaiser has more than 170 publications, and Google Scholar (10.01.2024) cites him with 2759 citations, h-index of 29 and i10-index of 59. He has extensive expertise and experience in methods of practical ethics and qualitative and quantitative research methods in social science. He has documented skills in project leadership and advice for inter- and transdisciplinary research.

Andrew Stout

Entrepreneur-in-Residence and Director of Science, Cellular Agriculture Commercialization Lab at Tufts University, USA

Keynote: From base pairs to burgers: scaling cultured meat from the nucleotide up

Andrew Stout is an Entrepreneur in Residence at Tufts University's Cell Ag Commercialization Lab in Boston, Massachusetts, where he directs research to develop and de-risk cultured meat technologies for real-world application. Andrew received his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Tufts University in 2022, where he was a New Harvest Fellow in Dr. David Kaplan's lab. There, Andrew focused on cell line engineering and serum free media development for cultured beef. Prior to Tufts, Andrew entered the field of cultured meat in 2013 as a researcher in Dr. Mark Post's lab at Maastricht University, and subsequently worked on the strain development team at Geltor, Inc., a San Francisco based company focusing on producing recombinant collagen and gelatin.

Nina Aro

Principal Scientist at VTT, Finland

Keynote: Engineering fungi for improved protein production by precision fermentation

Dr. Nina Aro has an extensive research career in the development industrially relevant microbial hosts for protein production. She has worked at VTT Ltd, Finland, on fungal host engineering for 20 years. Currently, she is Principal scientist and a project manager at Protein production Team managing research projects aiming at generation of production hosts and -processes for variety of different proteins, such as commercially important enzymes for food and feed applications, optimal enzyme mixtures for biomass hydrolysis and more recently proteins for food applications.

Dr. Nina Aro’s scientific expertise lies in genetic engineering of industrially relevant fungal production hosts, and development of production processes for target proteins. Her interest are in understanding how cellular agriculture can be used for future food production, what kind of target molecules can be produced by microbes and how can microbes be exploited in the generation and production of new sustainable materials for different applications.

She holds a Doctor of Philosophy degree in biochemistry from the Helsinki University Finland and is a certified project manager (IPMA C). Her PhD thesis focused on identification of novel transcription factors regulating the expression of cellulase genes in industrially relevant fungus Trichoderma reesei.