Chicago 2025 Workshop: Developing an action plan for collaborative research on cultured meat and seafood safety
Outcomes from a workshop with industry, academia, and governmental stakeholders
June 4, 2025, Chicago, IL
With in-kind support from Perkins Coie during the week of Future Food-Tech Chicago (June 2-3). Thank you to everyone who joined!
Wei Ng, Yadira Tejeda-Saldana, Julia Griffin, Kimberly Ong, Breanna Duffy, Jo Anne Shatkin
New Harvest & Vireo Advisors hosted a Cultured Meat Safety Initiative (CMSI) working session on June 4, 2025, in Chicago, IL. This working session is the fourth in a series focused on developing a research action plan for cultured meat and seafood (CM) safety. This report outlines key outcomes from the session, which engaged 22 participants from 8 countries and 21 organizations. Participants included non-US regulators and governmental scientists, academic researchers, and industry stakeholders from various companies, such as CM producers, cell line developers, and commercial laboratories.
Similarly to previous sessions in the series, the working session was conducted under Chatham House Rule to promote open discussion. The session began with a brainstorming session in which participants were presented with a list of research topics identified from previous CMSI work, including interviews with industry and governmental stakeholders and prior working sessions. Participants could expand on the list of safety research topics or comment on existing topics. This was followed by project pitches and voting to identify research topics for further discussion in breakout groups. During breakouts, participants defined specific research questions and identified actionable steps for conducting safety research. Group discussions throughout the day fostered a shared understanding of safety priorities and synthesized insights from breakouts. The session culminated in preliminary roadmaps to address key safety research topics.
This workshop was part of CMSI Phase III: Precompetitive Collaboration on Safety Research & Methods Development.
