hello everyone my name is Jess Krieger
and I’m a scientist but I’m not just any
kind of scientist I grow meet in cell
cultures instead of from animals my
story is just a small part of a much
bigger one one that connects all of us
in this room and beyond these walls it’s
the story of climate change and the
future of our planet it takes courage to
face our future but luckily we’re facing
it together today I’m going to tell you
the story of how i learned what my
contribution to solving the problem of
climate change is going to be but first
a little context the screen isn’t
working oh here we go but first a little
context this is me in my natural habitat
with a virtual reality system playing
video games see when I grew up I had
older brother’s so video games have
always been a huge part of my life and
playing video games was kind of like
learning to think like a scientist you
have your problems that you have to
solve you have to do troubleshooting and
you have to persist against all odds and
learning to think like this really came
in handy when I encountered a problem
that I wanted to solve in 2010 I saw for
the first time what goes on inside of a
slaughterhouse it was something that
shocked me to my core and I immediately
I started learning everything that I
could about animal agriculture and
that’s when I realized that animal
agriculture is a major chapter in the
story of climate change we all know that
greenhouse gases trap and emit heat and
that’s how they warm the planet but did
you know that 14 and a half percent of
all global greenhouse gas emissions come
from animal agriculture that’s more than
transportation worldwide animal AG is
such a potent contributor to climate
change because of the types of
greenhouse gases involved animal AG is
responsible for nine percent of carbon
dioxide emissions thirty-seven percent
of methane emissions and sixty-five
percent of nitric oxide emissions now
while most of the time we hear about
carbon dioxide with respect to global
warming methane and nitric oxide are
especially troubling gases because they
have a higher global warming potential
than carbon dioxide methane has 23 times
the warming potential of carbon dioxide
and nitric oxide has 296 times the
warming potential the bigger our global
heard the more greenhouse gases are
emitted and the worse the consequences
for the environment this is an aerial
photo of a cattle feedlot in Texas you
can see little dots that are the cattle
to the left of the image and toxic
runoff from the feedlots polluting the
environment to the right of the image
this is obviously not a pretty picture
but unfortunately for the environment
our meat heavy Western diet is trending
and it’s predicted that during this
century demand for me is going to double
clearly we have a huge problem that is
going to get worse as time goes on
the obvious solution that policymakers
and scientists around the world have
suggested is that we stop eating so much
meat and I personally took this to heart
but in trying to get other people to cut
down on their meat consumption I wasn’t
so successful because who wants to stop
eating bacon meat tastes great I mean
you can’t deny that but at that time I
felt like I had failed my mission and I
felt like maybe we’re doomed if we can’t
change and it was a very depressing
moment for me I was stuck at a boss that
I couldn’t be how can I possibly compete
with the taste of a cheeseburger when
you’re out with friends or a hot dog at
a baseball game or a turkey dinner at
Thanksgiving but all of that changed one
day in my introductory biology course I
learned about a new field called tissue
engineering and tissue engineering is
the growth of three-dimensional tissues
outside of the body but inside of a
bioreactor and as soon as I learned
about this I started geeking out I
thought it was the coolest thing that
I’d ever heard of and I started to learn
as much as I could about it and I
started thinking to myself if we can
grow human tissues for medical reasons
can we grow animal tissues for food so I
decided to take a leap into the unknown
and find out for myself I was so
energized by the idea that I could grow
the foods that people know and love
without hurting the environment so to
use gamer terminology I started gaining
experience points and I leveled up into
becoming a scientist and since then I
started growing meet in a lab and as
with all good ideas I’d
covered that I wasn’t the only person
doing this in 2013 the world’s first in
vitro AK cultured beef burger was tasted
in London it was created by dr. mark
post of the Netherlands and it was the
world’s most expensive burger in history
costing three hundred and thirty
thousand dollars it’s quite a hefty
price tag for a burger but this project
was bankrolled by one of the founders of
Google and it showed the world that this
is actually possible then in 2016 I
became familiar with a research
institute called new harvest new harvest
is a nonprofit research institute that
funds in vitro meat research and I met
other scientists on the same quest as me
but the cool part about new harvest is
it’s not just consisting of scientists
on our team it’s funded entirely by
private donors people like you and me
trying to make this happen in a way it’s
kind of like grassroots food science
with the support of new harvest I’ve
started growing pork this is an image of
a pork cell culture that I recently grew
here at can state and this is the
beginning of the research that is going
to give us in vitro bacon coming to a
store near you but also sometimes you
have to design technology around your
solution so I’m also working on
bioreactor design this is a bioreactor
system that my colleagues and I created
that we call an artificial heart this
artificial heart pumps artificial blood
into me so it can get the oxygen and the
nutrients it needs to grow big and
strong truly in vitro meat is
the smart future of food one that
overcomes so many of the limitations of
the archaic system of animal agriculture
but for such a promising solution I
worry about some of the challenges that
this food might face such as will this
be considered a GMO or will people
distrust this food because it came from
biotechnology and how will this be
regulated but for all of these possible
challenges there are so many exciting
opportunities here’s the thing since we
can now grow food with so much more
control than has ever before been
attainable we can have things like me
with healthier fats or red meat that
doesn’t cause colon cancer or fish
without the mercury no longer do you
have to be afraid of your sushi or we
could even have things like meat from
endangered or extinct species such as
giraffe steaks or mammoth steaks like
our ancestors you see truly there are so
many mind-blowing possibilities that
personally I can’t wait to eat bacon
again but science has brought us here
science develops cheat codes for the
universe but deeper than that science is
a shining light into darkness it is the
sword of truth with which we defend
ourselves from lies falsehoods and
it gave us the internet antibiotics it
put a human on the moon and it can help
us solve climate change I’m on a mission
to make that happen will you join me
thank you if you’re interested in
following my in vitro bacon progress I
have a twitter account that i post all of my progress on you can follow me at
and I’m a scientist but I’m not just any
kind of scientist I grow meet in cell
cultures instead of from animals my
story is just a small part of a much
bigger one one that connects all of us
in this room and beyond these walls it’s
the story of climate change and the
future of our planet it takes courage to
face our future but luckily we’re facing
it together today I’m going to tell you
the story of how i learned what my
contribution to solving the problem of
climate change is going to be but first
a little context the screen isn’t
working oh here we go but first a little
context this is me in my natural habitat
with a virtual reality system playing
video games see when I grew up I had
older brother’s so video games have
always been a huge part of my life and
playing video games was kind of like
learning to think like a scientist you
have your problems that you have to
solve you have to do troubleshooting and
you have to persist against all odds and
learning to think like this really came
in handy when I encountered a problem
that I wanted to solve in 2010 I saw for
the first time what goes on inside of a
slaughterhouse it was something that
shocked me to my core and I immediately
I started learning everything that I
could about animal agriculture and
that’s when I realized that animal
agriculture is a major chapter in the
story of climate change we all know that
greenhouse gases trap and emit heat and
that’s how they warm the planet but did
you know that 14 and a half percent of
all global greenhouse gas emissions come
from animal agriculture that’s more than
transportation worldwide animal AG is
such a potent contributor to climate
change because of the types of
greenhouse gases involved animal AG is
responsible for nine percent of carbon
dioxide emissions thirty-seven percent
of methane emissions and sixty-five
percent of nitric oxide emissions now
while most of the time we hear about
carbon dioxide with respect to global
warming methane and nitric oxide are
especially troubling gases because they
have a higher global warming potential
than carbon dioxide methane has 23 times
the warming potential of carbon dioxide
and nitric oxide has 296 times the
warming potential the bigger our global
heard the more greenhouse gases are
emitted and the worse the consequences
for the environment this is an aerial
photo of a cattle feedlot in Texas you
can see little dots that are the cattle
to the left of the image and toxic
runoff from the feedlots polluting the
environment to the right of the image
this is obviously not a pretty picture
but unfortunately for the environment
our meat heavy Western diet is trending
and it’s predicted that during this
century demand for me is going to double
clearly we have a huge problem that is
going to get worse as time goes on
the obvious solution that policymakers
and scientists around the world have
suggested is that we stop eating so much
meat and I personally took this to heart
but in trying to get other people to cut
down on their meat consumption I wasn’t
so successful because who wants to stop
eating bacon meat tastes great I mean
you can’t deny that but at that time I
felt like I had failed my mission and I
felt like maybe we’re doomed if we can’t
change and it was a very depressing
moment for me I was stuck at a boss that
I couldn’t be how can I possibly compete
with the taste of a cheeseburger when
you’re out with friends or a hot dog at
a baseball game or a turkey dinner at
Thanksgiving but all of that changed one
day in my introductory biology course I
learned about a new field called tissue
engineering and tissue engineering is
the growth of three-dimensional tissues
outside of the body but inside of a
bioreactor and as soon as I learned
about this I started geeking out I
thought it was the coolest thing that
I’d ever heard of and I started to learn
as much as I could about it and I
started thinking to myself if we can
grow human tissues for medical reasons
can we grow animal tissues for food so I
decided to take a leap into the unknown
and find out for myself I was so
energized by the idea that I could grow
the foods that people know and love
without hurting the environment so to
use gamer terminology I started gaining
experience points and I leveled up into
becoming a scientist and since then I
started growing meet in a lab and as
with all good ideas I’d
covered that I wasn’t the only person
doing this in 2013 the world’s first in
vitro AK cultured beef burger was tasted
in London it was created by dr. mark
post of the Netherlands and it was the
world’s most expensive burger in history
costing three hundred and thirty
thousand dollars it’s quite a hefty
price tag for a burger but this project
was bankrolled by one of the founders of
Google and it showed the world that this
is actually possible then in 2016 I
became familiar with a research
institute called new harvest new harvest
is a nonprofit research institute that
funds in vitro meat research and I met
other scientists on the same quest as me
but the cool part about new harvest is
it’s not just consisting of scientists
on our team it’s funded entirely by
private donors people like you and me
trying to make this happen in a way it’s
kind of like grassroots food science
with the support of new harvest I’ve
started growing pork this is an image of
a pork cell culture that I recently grew
here at can state and this is the
beginning of the research that is going
to give us in vitro bacon coming to a
store near you but also sometimes you
have to design technology around your
solution so I’m also working on
bioreactor design this is a bioreactor
system that my colleagues and I created
that we call an artificial heart this
artificial heart pumps artificial blood
into me so it can get the oxygen and the
nutrients it needs to grow big and
strong truly in vitro meat is
the smart future of food one that
overcomes so many of the limitations of
the archaic system of animal agriculture
but for such a promising solution I
worry about some of the challenges that
this food might face such as will this
be considered a GMO or will people
distrust this food because it came from
biotechnology and how will this be
regulated but for all of these possible
challenges there are so many exciting
opportunities here’s the thing since we
can now grow food with so much more
control than has ever before been
attainable we can have things like me
with healthier fats or red meat that
doesn’t cause colon cancer or fish
without the mercury no longer do you
have to be afraid of your sushi or we
could even have things like meat from
endangered or extinct species such as
giraffe steaks or mammoth steaks like
our ancestors you see truly there are so
many mind-blowing possibilities that
personally I can’t wait to eat bacon
again but science has brought us here
science develops cheat codes for the
universe but deeper than that science is
a shining light into darkness it is the
sword of truth with which we defend
ourselves from lies falsehoods and
it gave us the internet antibiotics it
put a human on the moon and it can help
us solve climate change I’m on a mission
to make that happen will you join me
thank you if you’re interested in
following my in vitro bacon progress I
have a twitter account that i post all of my progress on you can follow me at
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