Cellular Agriculture Webinar Postponed

The Future of Food

Online

"Due to personal circumstances we have to postpone the webinar to a later moment. Already registered? We will inform you accordingly about the new date."

The world’s population is continuously increasing and is expected to reach 10 billion people by 2050. The current animal agriculture practices are not sustainable and have many concerns related to animal welfare, overcrowding, irresponsible use of antibiotics contributing to the antibiotic resistance global challenge, deforestation and biodiversity loss, significant use of natural resources and significant production of greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change.

Thus, there is an increased need for sustainable, protein rich food sources to support the rapidly growing population, while overcoming the detrimental effects of current animal agriculture practices. Cellular agriculture is an emerging area with potential to achieve this. Cellular agriculture products include

1) acellular products (e.g. milk, cheese) that are produced by cells through fermentation

and

2) cellular products (e.g. cultivated meat) that are composed of cells.

Acellular products like rennet, used for making cheese, have been successfully produced to date using fermentation. However, cellular products like cultivated meats are still in the concept stage, with only one product available to consumers in Singapore.

This webinar will touch on the shortcomings of current animal agriculture practices and the potential of the emerging cellular agriculture field for production of sustainable foods without the animal.

Guest speaker: 

Dr Petra Hanga, who is a Lecturer in Biochemical Engineering – Cellular Agriculture at University College London since September 2021. Before that she was a Lecturer in Biological Engineering at Aston University, Birmingham. Dr Hanga holds a BEng in Biochemical Engineering and a PhD in Regenerative Medicine. Being a biochemical engineer by training, Dr Hanga’s research interests lie at the intersection of Engineering and Life Sciences. Her research addresses two distinct grand challenges:

1) healthcare, by developing future therapies that will minimise the economic and social burden of an aging population and

2) food and nutrition for health, by advancing cultivated meat technologies that ultimately will enable a radical shift away from livestock products.

Dr Hanga’s multidisciplinary strengths and expertise include an understanding of the whole stem cell culture bioprocess from inoculation to harvest, including engineering characterisation of bioreactors and biological characterisation of stem cells.