Producing meat without the animal

Humans are currently eating more meat than our planet can afford. Raising animals for food is resource intensive. The rise in global meat consumption has dire consequences for human health, our agricultural industry, the environment, biodiversity, and animal welfare. Fortunately, there’s an effective way to solve this growing problem. Cellular agriculture is an emerging research field dedicated to producing meat, eggs, milk, and leather directly from animals’ cells rather than whole animals.

Following nearly twenty years in various scientific roles at Nestlé in Switzerland, Johannes le Coutre moved to Sydney in October 2019. Johannes will present an overview of his work leading to the current early stages of a fully integrated program on Cellular Agriculture at UNSW.

OUR SPEAKERS

Professor Johannes le Coutre, School of Chemical Engineering, UNSW Sydney

Johannes le Coutre is Professor Food & Health at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney, Australia. He obtained his Ph.D. in Biophysics at the Max-Planck-Institute of Nutrition Physiology in Germany, where he identified intricate details of the reaction mechanism underlying light driven bacterial proton transport. With a Human Frontiers award, he went to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at UCLA to investigate molecular mechanisms of membrane transport.

In 2000 he was asked to build a research program on taste physiology at the Nestlé Research Center in Lausanne, Switzerland. His contribution and expertise have been pivotal in making the Nestlé work on taste perception and central integration internationally valued and recognized.

Over the past decade le Coutre has initiated various large-scale global research programs integrating the private and the public sectors. Le Coutre has led those programs all the way to implementation in the markets and he has been recognized with several R&D awards. With a strong track record of membrane biophysics his research focus has been shifting from taste physiology at the periphery toward central representation of stimulation in the brain.

From 2009 to 2017 le Coutre held a visiting Professorship at the University of Tokyo, where he has been involved with teaching and with a project on taste perception in the Elderly (Mikaku).

In 2016 le Coutre has been promoted to Head of the Greater London Research Program. He established and led a portfolio of scientific collaborations between Nestlé and lmperial College London, where he holds a visiting Professorship. This program features clinical work on microbiota, on spices and on food-related human perception.

Professor le Coutre is the founding Field Chief Editor for FRONTIERS in Nutrition, an open access journal by the Frontiers Media company.

Dr. Bianca Le, Cellular Agriculture Australia

How can we use STEM to tackle some of our world’s greatest problems, like climate change, food insecurity, human diseases, animal suffering, and gender inequality? Dr. Bianca Le is a cell biologist and science communicator doing just that.

She completed her PhD at Monash University, where her research focused on understanding how being born prematurely can lead to long-term cardiovascular disease – the world’s greatest killer.

Bianca is now utilising her expertise in cell biology to help develop food more sustainably in the emerging research field called cellular agriculture. Cellular agriculture can provide healthier sources of protein to our growing population without sacrificing our planet, by harnessing modern technology to farm meat, eggs, and dairy directly from cells, not animals. Bianca is now the Director of Cellular Agriculture Australia

When Bianca’s not doing science, she talks and writes about it. As an experienced science communicator, Bianca has spoken on radio and at international conferences, and has published articles on ecology, biomedicine, and agtech. She has also contributed to various national policy projects spanning women in STEM, waste management, and science diplomacy at the Academy of Technology and Engineering.

Bianca was recently selected to be in the Superstars of STEM program for 2021-2022.