We’re excited to announce that New Harvest and Vireo Advisors are launching a series of working sessions for 2024-2025 to formally kick off Phase 3 of the Cultured Meat Safety Initiative (CMSI)! 

The goal of the working sessions is to foster collaborations amongst individuals interested in actively working on or advising cultured meat and seafood safety research. Working sessions will identify steps for conducting collaborative and pre-competitive research to address cultured meat safety priorities, which were outlined in our previous publications from Phases 1 and 2 (Ong et al. 2021, Ong et al. 2023). Focus areas include cells, inputs, adventitious agents, final products, and manufacturing practices. 

The working sessions will be held in 2024-2025. The first working session is on December 12, 2024, in Austin, Texas, co-sponsored by and co-located with the Society for Risk Analysis Annual Meeting. Additional sessions will be held during the weeks of the Future Food-Tech San Francisco, CA (week of March 10-14, 2025 - exact date and time TBD) and Future of Protein Production Chicago, IL, tentatively April 28, 2025. 

Application is required - apply for the December working session or indicate interest in another future working session here! Each session is a one-day event, and there is no registration fee. Experts and researchers in food safety, toxicology, biomanufacturing, cell biology, food science, and other related fields are encouraged to apply! Prior experience in cultured meat safety research and participation in prior CMSI work are not required to participate in CMSI Phase 3 Working Sessions. Participants may attend one or more multiple working sessions, and travel support is available to a limited number of participants, with priority for early-career and under-represented researchers. Unfortunately, there is no option to participate remotely.

Support for this working session series is provided by the US National Science Foundation (NSF), the Society for Risk Analysis (SRA), and the University of California Davis Integrative Center for Alternative Meat and Protein (iCAMP).

Reach out to us at CMSI@vireoadvisors.com with any questions. We hope to see you at the working sessions!