Working Sessions: Developing a Cultured Meat Safety Research Action Plan
About
These working sessions will bring together researchers to form collaborations and develop actionable plans to advance research and methods on cultured meat and seafood safety. Discussion topics will include: cells, inputs, adventitious agents, final products, and manufacturing practices.
The working sessions are intended for industry professionals, researchers, regulators, and other stakeholders interested in actively working on or advising cultured meat and seafood safety research and methods development. Please refrain from signing up if you’ll just be observing – you’ll get to read the outcomes in the report afterward!
The working sessions are hosted by New Harvest and Vireo Advisors as part of the Cultured Meat Safety Initiative.
How to join
Due to limited space, interested participants are asked to apply to participate in a working session. Applications will be notified of the status at least 1 month prior to the working session. Application links for each session are below.
Working session dates, locations, and application forms
Three sessions will be held throughout 2024-2025. Each session will be 1 day, including lunch and coffee, followed by a networking session.
December 12, 2024 – Austin, Texas: Co-sponsored by and co-located with the Society for Risk Analysis Annual Meeting. Apply for this session here.
When: 9:30 am – 3:30 pm, followed by a networking hour. Lunch and coffee will be provided.
Where: JW Marriott Austin
March 2025 – California: In collaboration with UC Davis Integrative Center for Alternative Meat and Protein (iCAMP) prior to Future Food-Tech San Francisco (March 13-14). The exact date & location will be announced soon. To receive updates about this session, fill out this form.
April 2025 – Chicago, Illinois: Co-located with the Future of Protein Chicago (April 29-30). The exact date & location will be announced soon. To receive updates about this session, fill out this form.
What to expect at the working sessions
The working session will include a brief introduction on the current state of safety demonstration followed by discussions aimed at identifying needs (e.g., materials, knowledge, equipment, funding, partnerships) and frameworks for collaboration (e.g. structures, IP protections) for conducting research on participant-selected safety questions. Focus areas for safety research include cells, inputs, adventitious agents, final products, and manufacturing practices. The outcome of the working session will be an action plan for collaborative research to accelerate safety demonstrations for the whole field and an opportunity to get more involved in this work.
The working session will be held under Chatham House rules (the information may be shared, but neither the identity nor affiliation of the speakers may be revealed). The results of the working session will be shared openly in the form of a manuscript or white paper outlining these outcomes while protecting IP concerns of participants.
Lunch and coffee will be provided. A networking hour will be hosted after the working session.
Travel Support
Travel support is available for a limited number of participants, with priority for early career and underrepresented researchers. If you require travel support, indicate this on the application form. Participants will be notified about travel support at least 1 month prior to the working session.
About the Organizers
New Harvest and Vireo Advisors launched the Cultured Meat Safety Initiative (CMSI) in 2020 to address critical technical, methodological, and informational challenges related to cultured meat and seafood safety. By convening diverse stakeholders from industry, government, academia and consumer organizations, this initiative aims to bring varied perspectives to advance public knowledge and food safety practice for cultured meat and seafood products by identifying and addressing current data gaps. The initiative has produced two peer reviewed publications, including an industry-informed outline of the cultured meat and seafood production process and safety research priorities identified by industry and governmental stakeholders (Ong et al. 2021, Ong et al. 2023).
New Harvest is a global non-profit organization founded in 2004 that focuses on building the field of cellular agriculture following the principles of responsible innovation. New Harvest’s field-building efforts through funding and conducting critical research and multistakeholder work have catalyzed over $2B in follow-on private investment and $20 million in follow-on public research dollars. New Harvest Director of Responsible Research and Innovation Dr. Duffy is a tissue engineering expert. She has served as a Working Group Vice Chair for the FAO and WHO’s Expert Consultation for hazard identification for cell-based foods in 2022 and has been invited to speak about the cellular agriculture ecosystem for the OECD Working Party for the Safety of Novel Foods and Feeds.
Vireo Advisors is a mission-driven expert advising firm aiming to advance market adoption of safe and sustainable bioeconomy technologies, including cultured meat and seafood, by creating shared safety knowledge and practices, creating transparency among stakeholders and developing regulatory and safety strategies towards commercialization. Vireo Advisors founder, Dr. Jo Anne Shatkin is a recognized expert in risk assessment of novel bio-based and nanoscale technologies. She has served on several expert committees, including the 2022 FAO/WHO Expert Consultation on Food Safety Aspects of Cell-Based Food, WHO/FAO Expert Panel on Nanotechnology in Food, the Canadian Council of Academies, and the US National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Quadrennial Review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative. Jo Anne is a fellow and 30 year member of the international Society for Risk Analysis (SRA), where she founded the Advanced Materials and Technologies Specialty Group, served as an SRA councilor and received several SRA awards.
Financial support for this working session series was provided by the US National Science Foundation. In kind support is provided by The Society for Risk Analysis (SRA) and the University of California Davis Integrative Center for Alternative Meat and Protein (iCAMP).
