In this TEDxTufts talk, Dr. Natalie Rubio, a former PhD student in the Kaplan Lab, shares her decade long passion for cellular agriculture and the quest to produce meat from cells rather than animals. She recounts her unique research into growing meat from insect cells, which led to a NASA grant to study “space food,” and discusses the evolution of the field from theoretical idealism to the practical realities of industrial scaling.
Dr. Rubio highlights the current challenges facing the industry, including high production costs and the technical difficulty of creating structured products like steaks. Despite these hurdles, she remains committed to the field and has cofounded a company with fellow Tufts colleagues to develop innovative solutions like more productive cell lines and affordable growth media. Her talk serves as both a reflection on her professional journey and a call for experts from all disciplines to help build a more sustainable and humane global food system.