Every year the global meat industry releases enormous amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and causes the deforestation of vast areas of land. In addition, it’s dreadfully inefficient in the way it operates, leading to a tremendous waste of resources. So, should we gradually abandon meat consumption altogether?

Well, not necessarily, according to Mark Post. The well-acclaimed medical doctor and professor of Physiology at Maastricht University offers an alternative solution: rather than giving up our dietary habits, we could change the meat production model instead.

Post and his team have developed a meat product from cow muscle stem cells and fat tissue derived stem cells. The doctor had already presented the world’s first hamburger from cultured beef back in August 2013. The prospect of cultured burgers produced in a lab may not sound too appetizing for many, but it’s definitely innovative. It may even be necessary if we consider the environmental and ethical issues the current meat production industry raises.

For cultured beef to be successful, however, it has to be scaled to an industrial scale, with low production cost, delivering a credible copy of meat so that consumers accept the concept and the product. The challenges for this exciting innovation are many, but with over 60 start-up companies world-wide, substantial private funding, and about 1000 scientists working on the project, cultured meat is increasingly likely to become real.

Mark Post will discuss the technical challenges, the opportunities, and some surprising social implications of this innovation in his captivating talk at the Athens Science Festival.

The discussion will be moderated by Panos Giannios.

Mark Post is a medical doctor and professor of Physiology at Maastricht University. His main research interest is the engineering of tissues for medical purposes and for food, which has led to the development of cultured beef from cow skeletal muscle stem cells in an effort to supplement and transform the traditional livestock meat production. He is Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder of two companies, MosaMeat and Qorium that will commercialize cultured meat and cultured leather.

Speech title: Delicious burger made from stem cells! || Date & time: Saturday 27 March, 16.00-17.00