Jeremy Agresti has spent his career developing tools to drastically change the pace of biology with massive-throughput measurements using microfluidics. His seminal contributions as pioneer of miniaturizing biology with microfluidics have resulted in a large number of publications and patents, which have been cited more than 9,000 times, and form the foundation of several companies in the space. His work has allowed Amyris to bring their biofuels and chemicals to market faster, and for companies like Bio-Rad, Illumina and 10x Genomics to bring new single-cell genomics tools and clinical diagnostic tests to market. Jeremy is a co-founder and advisor to Slingshot Biosciences and founder and CTO Triplebar, where he leads a team of scientists and engineers to leverage the power of evolution to bring new biology-produced products to the world and build a sustainable future for the planet.

This episode is part of the Transforming The Future of Proteins series.

XPRIZE Feed the Next Billion is a multi-year, $15M competition that incentivizes teams to produce chicken breast or fish filet alternatives that replicate or outperform these conventional proteins in the following ways: access, environmental sustainability, animal welfare, nutrition, as well as taste and texture.

Caroline Kolta is the Program Director on XPRIZE Feed the Next Billion, where she oversees the technical and day to day operations of the competition including project management, knowledge management, stakeholder management, and risk management.

Prior to this, she worked on an array of projects including supporting XPRIZE Foundation’s research on circular and resilient food systems, in addition to designing competitions for alternative protein, circular water economy, sustainable food packaging, and Alzheimer's Disease.

Caroline comes to XPRIZE with 7 years of experience in the international development, governance, and election monitoring sectors in the Middle East and North Africa region as a project manager, researcher, and policy advisor. Her professional career is geared towards advancing human rights and freedoms, civic engagement, and empowering marginalized populations.

She holds an MA in Sustainable International Development, with a focus on Conflict Resolution and Coexistence from the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University and a Bachelor of Political Science from Cairo University. 

Learn more about the XPRIZE Feed the Next Billion Challenge at www.xprize.org/feed

Vanessa Haley-Benjamin - New Harvest Fellowship Series

This episode is sponsored by the Black & Veatch NextGen Ag Team. Learn more about Black and Veatch at https://www.bv.com

Edward Shenderovich is co-founder and CEO of Synonym Biotechnologies. Before Synonym, Edward was the Executive Chairman and co-founder of Knotel, a leading flexible office company (acquired by Newmark), founding and managing partner of Kite Ventures, a global venture investment company, and a founding executive of SUP Media, where he oversaw the company’s strategic development, including the rollout of LiveJournal globally. Previously, he was a co-founder and CEO of Quantum Art, a content management software provider, and a co-founder of Merchantry, a New York-based provider of online marketplace infrastructure (acquired by Tradeshift). Edward has served on the boards of directors of a number of successful companies, including Tradeshift, Delivery Hero, Plated, Domo, and others. He started his career as an Industry Analyst at Silicon Valley Bank. Edward is a graduate of UC Berkeley and a Fellow at Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore.

Check out Capacitor, The free worldwide database of biomanufacturing capacity at https://capacitor.bio/

On this episode, we’re excited to have Joshua March. Joshua is Co-founder and CEO of SCiFi Foods, a startup creating transformational products by combining cultivated meat with plant-based ingredients to make burgers shockingly close to the taste of conventional beef.

A serial entrepreneur with two exits to his name, Joshua was previously the Co-founder of Conversocial, a digital care platform for messaging that integrates with many of the world's leading brands.

Joshua has a passion for all things food science, environmental sustainability, and believes in the potential of synthetic biology to create superior products for a rapidly growing world. Originally from England and now based in San Francisco.

Sophie Letcher is a PhD student and New Harvest Research Fellow in the Biomedical Engineering Department at Tufts University. She is a part of David Kaplan’s (growing!) cellular agriculture research group, and so far, her research as focused on two main topics. The first is using bioelectricity (endogenous electrical currents) to control muscle cell proliferation and differentiation, and the second is furthering the field of entomoculture (insect cell culture for food). Prior to starting at Tufts, she received her B.A. at Kenyon College in Neuroscience, then worked as a research technician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA.

This episode was originally recorded in December 2021.

David Kay, Director of Communications at UPSIDE Foods discusses the FDA "No Questions" Letter regarding cultivated chicken as safe to eat.

This is a huge milestone within the cell-cultured meat industry and one step closer to seeing cultivated meat products on dinner tables.

Alex Shirazi of the Cultured Meat and Future Food Podcast discusses the meaning behind the announcement and the impact on the food industry.

Learn more about UPSIDE Foods at https://upsidefoods.com/.

Listen to the previous episode with David Kay at https://cmsymp.medium.com/david-kay-of-upside-foods-on-the-cultured-meat-and-future-food-show-podcast-5c0d2cefc4f2

The Cultured Meat Symposium 2022 is taking place on October 28-29, 2022. Learn more and register for the event at https://cms2022.com

On this episode I chat with Lejjy Gafour of CULT Food Science. We chat about Lejjy's background, his start within the cellular agriculture industry, touch on Future Fields, and learn about CULT Food Science.

Additional show notes will be posted soon.

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Alex Shirazi sits down with Deniz Kent, Co-founder and CEO of Prolific Machines. Prolific Machines is a Stealth startup based in San Francisco. They are working on technologies that seriously reduces the cost of cultured meat production. On this episode we chat about Deniz' background and how the company came to be.

Learn more about Prolific Machines at https://www.prolificmachines.com/

The Cultured Meat Symposium 2022 is taking place on October 28-29, 2022 in Downtown San Francisco. Learn more and register at https://cms2022.com

This episode of the Cultured Meat and Future Food Podcast features Patricia Bubner of Orbillion. Alex and Patricia chat about Orbillion, different cuts of cultivated meat products, and the importance of messaging within the industry.

Learn more about Orbillion Bio at https://www.orbillion.com/