Articles by Isha Datar

We fiercely protect our independence.

Brittany Chambers is New Harvest’s new Director of Development.  She brings a deep knowledge of philanthropy to the team and has spent the past 11 years building development teams, fostering genuine connections with philanthropists of all backgrounds, devising fundraising strategies for small and large organizations, and coaching fundraisers and executives.

An all-star lineup kicks off the inaugural Cellular Agriculture Innovation Day at Tufts University with an overview of where we are as a field, industry, and discipline.

A letter from our Executive Director reflecting on the past decade of New Harvest’s work and forecasting the next.

How does a charity bootstrap? We co-founded some of cell ag’s first companies and now we are re-investing in the future of food. It’s a “go big or go home” moment.

Our annual year-in-review community call looked back on our past 10 years of progress and what the field needs moving forward.

Cellular agriculture is a nascent field; there is a vast void of leadership stories yet to be told.

Non-profit impact is hard to measure, especially for orgs like ours. We need your help.

But what is it, and what is New Harvest doing about it?

Before there was a cellular agriculture institute, textbook, or PhD program, there were more than 100 cellular agriculture companies around the world. If cellular agriculture is a city, it is one without public infrastructure. There are privately owned “houses” popping up everywhere, but the roads, bridges, sewers, and public squares – all of which are […]

Over a month ago, our Executive Director called an Emergency Town Hall to discuss the future of New Harvest given a dwindling runway. The following newsletter update was sent out to share the enormous fundraise that arose from that call for help and the steps the organization pursued to ensure its impact going forward. Dear […]

In light of changes to our financial outlook, executive director Isha Datar will be hosting an emergency town hall June 10th at 3:30pm EST at our conference. Those unable to attend the conference can participate virtually.

Phase two of New Harvest’s safety initiative will fill in key research gaps, pending donor support.

By building a community of cell ag researchers across the world, we’ve built a movement that has momentum of its own.

New report from Ontario Genomics highlights the potential of cellular agriculture in Canada – $12.5B and 142,000 jobs – and proposes three actions for moving forward

New Harvest Executive Director Isha Datar explains how cultured meat can disrupt animal agriculture AND create a more just, democratic food system.

Impeding the flow of information misaligns with New Harvest’s role as a public charity.

With our new mission, New Harvest is taking our programming back to the lab.

A highlight reel of our 2020 Annual Report. More than anything, this is a tribute to our community—a testament to what we can achieve when we work together to ensure cellular agriculture delivers on its promises sooner rather than later.

In late 2020, New Harvest decided to update our mission statement. Our new mission is about ensuring cellular agriculture delivers on its promise to make the world a better place.

After almost three years on the New Harvest team, Kate is moving on from her role as Research Director to start Helikon Consulting. Kate will be filling a gap in the for-profit side of cellular agriculture, doing technical consulting and talent scouting in alternative proteins and cell-based meat.

New Harvest is seeking a talented Chief Operating Officer to develop the organizational capacity to unlock the next phase of growth and development to scale New Harvest’s signature programs and impact.

For the past five years, we have been advancing innovative food biotechnology at New Harvest. It’s been quite a journey, growing a new organization, a new community, and being at the forefront of a new field and industry. We’re incredibly proud of the work that we’ve done. Central to this work is our community. We’ve been […]

For the past five years, we have been advancing innovative food biotechnology at New Harvest. It’s been quite a journey, growing a new organization, a new community, and being at the forefront of a new field and industry. We’re incredibly proud of the work that we’ve done. Bringing the organization from zero to steady state growth […]

Good news: our research program is scalable!

To encourage an active and engaged dialogue, we used Sli.do to mediate audience participation at the New Harvest 2017 conference.

Curious how New Harvest earns and spends its money?

We’re happy to present our 2016 financials — not yet audited, keep in mind — to give you a better idea.

While there is still much hard science to be done to bring cultured meat to grocery stores, it is important to note that the potential benefits of cellular agriculture will only be realized if consumers accept the technology and its products. 

It’s been a wild ride – check out New Harvest’s 2016 highlights!

And don’t forget, all donations made this December will be DOUBLED by the Jeremy Coller Foundation!

On July 14, 2016, New Harvest hosted the first invitation-only workshop for industry, academic and government stakeholders in cellular agriculture.

Isha’s reflections on being invited to present to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on the regulation of future products of biotechnology.

New Harvest is supporting a foundational cultured avian tissue research project for the purpose of creating chicken and turkey meat without animals at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at North Carolina State University. The project is led by Dr. Paul Mozdziak, an expert in animal cell culture techniques, transgenic animal production, and muscle biology. He is assisted by graduate student Marie Gibbons. New Harvest’s financial support to the team at NCSU will total $118,800, provided over 2 years.

In 2015, Abi Glencross put together a PhD proposal with Dr. Mark Post (of the world’s first cultured hamburger) for a project focused on creating cultured meat. Specifically, to work on 3D vascularized muscle tissue. She applied for grants but couldn’t get any funding. We believed this was the kind of early-stage groundwork that is key to building the field of cellular agriculture, so we worked with Abi to get her project funding by New Harvest donors at MaxMind.

2015 was a big deal for New Harvest because it was the first time we had to deliver on a restricted donation.

This month, the Jeremy Coller Foundation is matching all gifts up to a total of $100,000. Double your impact and match your gift today!

New Harvest’s 2015 year at a glance!

New Harvest launched a new website and visual presence today. Symon, Bohdan, and Tucker of ALSO Collective helped us put it together, with the help of Nick’s amazing illustrations.

In 2008, New Harvest funded an environmental impact assessment of cultured meat compared to conventionally produced livestock at Oxford University by Hanna Tuomisto. It was published in Environmental Science & Technology in 2011 and can be accessed here. It was the first time there were numbers associated with the environmental benefit of cultured meat and has […]

In August 2013, the first cell-cultured hamburger was cooked and tasted live on air in London, England. Professor Mark Post created the burger at the University of Maastricht. However, the majority of the muscle strands were grown in media with fetal bovine serum. In early 2015, New Harvest provided Mark’s lab with $50,000 to conduct additional research towards a completely animal-free system for growing cultured meat.

Hi Friends of New Harvest! It’s no question that New Harvest is advancing world changing technology. There is still time to help New Harvest achieve its mission to advance alternatives to conventionally produced meat. Any American donations received by Dec 31 are tax-deductible, as New Harvest is a registered 501(c)3 charitable organization. Remember, giving what you can means being […]

New Harvest’s 2014 year at a glance!

In celebration of New Harvest’s 10 year anniversary on 23 July 2014, we are looking back at some of the milestones on our timeline of events, which covers the many achievements and breakthroughs in New Harvest’s work and the research into alternative meat production over the last 10 years.

One prominent activist called cultured meat “the best chance we have at saving animals over the next few years.” From Isha: Just got back from LA, at my first Animal Rights National Conference. Months back, Sherrie, a long time dedicated New Harvest volunteer recommended that I sign up to speak at this year’s conference. Upon […]

I forget when I first heard about Soylent, but I sent Rob Rhinehart my first piece of fan mail in the beginning of March. The first thing I wanted to commend him on was – good name. Pre-empting the negativity. As a person who talks about cultured meat on a daily basis it gets tiring […]

I had a blast in Ireland this past week visiting New Harvest community members Ryan Pandya (centre) and Perumal Gandhi (right) at the Synthetic Biology Accelerator in Cork. They’ve created Muufri, an organization developing milk in cell culture rather than in animals, in an attempt to end intensive industrial dairy farming. Ryan and Perumal met through […]

  From May 14-17, Monterey Bay Aquarium held their annual Sustainable Foods Conference – an invite-only, two day event for media and players in the food sustainability world. I (Isha) took the stage on Thursday morning on the following panel: Reinventing Food: Can Technology Solve Our Environmental Problems? Does technology interfere with nature’s systems, or […]

Hi Friends of New Harvest! There is still time (last day!) to help New Harvest achieve its mission to advance alternatives to conventionally produced meat.Be among donors who see meat alternatives as the solution to suffering, environmental, and public health issues. Any American donations received by Dec 31 are tax-deductible, as New Harvest is a registered 501(c)3 charitable organization. Remember, […]

If we were starting from scratch, we wouldn’t make meat the way we do now. How are you taking part in re-thinking meat? There is still time to help New Harvest bring together inspiring tissue engineers and food scientists at premiere conferences next year to figure out how to accelerate cultured meat development and make meat […]

New Harvest’s 2013 year at a glance!

Very excited to be doing a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) today, about cultured meat and the tasting that just took place in London. Many, many thanks to Kenny Torrella of HSUS for helping me with the logistics – I have never used Reddit before! Go ahead… ask me anything! http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1k7e2j/im_isha_datar_director_of_new_harvest_the/

What a trip! What an experience! What a milestone! On August 5th was the cultured beef burger tasting, where Mark Post from Maastricht University announced that his cultured hamburger project was funded by Google’s Sergey Brin. The audience at the event was primarily journalists – invited from around the world – and a few researchers from the […]

Hey everyone!! The tasting was just excellent – more reflections on that soon. Of the many pieces in the media on cultured meat, perhaps you would be interested in the op-ed on CNN that I was invited to write! Check out the article here.

I had the opportunity to visit (for the first time!) the Institute for Food Technologists’ Annual Expo in Chicago, IL, USA. It was extremely eye opening from my point of view as the director of NH, but also as a consumer. I would encourage anyone interested in the food industry to attend this yearly event. […]