April 8, 2021 • 52 mins
In one sentence: “Synthesizing” and “food” are uncommon word pairings, but the engineered dishes they serve may be an appetizing feast for the senses.
Overview:
Climate change, a growing global population, and maturation of new biotechnologies are driving the motivation for – and means of – producing more food. Engineering is improving traditional agricultural means for food production, yet, in our conversation with Kate Krueger of Helikon, emerging synthesization techniques are bringing food from the lab to the market, with exciting and healthy results.
Topic Timecodes:
00:59 What is "high-tech food"
01:57 "Cheese doodle" tech
04:06 Recombinant protein technology
06:17 Relationship between recombinant protein technology and climate change
08:07 Growth factors & proteins
11:58 Veracity of claims of cosmetic benefits due to wheat-grown proteins
12:38 Analogy to stem cells
13:04 Economic challenge of growing growth factors
14:42 Summary of mechanism for generating proteins genetically
16:50 Is eating meat bad for the environment?
19:01 Wildtype and genetically-engineered salmon
19:41 Taste of lab-grown meat & "fat tech"
21:02 Politics around meat-eating & environmental sustainability concerns
23:00 Potential for lab-grown meat
25:28 More funding for startups than universities & Kate's cross-silo experience in cell ag space
28:39 Helikon Consulting
32:01 Potential harms for "high-tech food" & regulation by FDA/USDA
34:43 Long-term effects on human microbiome due to consumption of lab-grown meat as opposed to more "biodiverse", from-the-wild foods
36:50 Red tomatoes & ethylene gas
38:45 Kid Kate & why biology/chemistry as concentration
40:01 Why consulting for Kate now?
41:10 Balancing industry and academic perspectives
45:40 Rapid-fire questions for Kate
47:45 Kate asks us rapid-fire questions
51:44 Kate's advice to audience
Show Notes:
- Episode page, transcript, and podcast listening links: https://www.toughtechtoday.com/synthesizing-food/
- Kate Kruger on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ktkrueger
- Helikon (company): https://www.helikon.xyz
- Watch this show on Youtube: https://youtu.be/W55ZojPWblc
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kate Kreuger (00:00):
I think one thing that is important to remember is
(00:03):
the price of freedom isuncertainty. And so you kind of
venture into that unknown andyou're definitely taking more
risks, but you also have moreopportunities.
Announcer (00:15):
Welcome to Tough Tech Today with Meyen and Miller.
This is the premiere showfeaturing trailblazers who are
building technologies today tosolve tomorrow's toughest
challenges.
Forrest Meyen (00:30):
Welcome to today's episode of Tough Tech
Today. Today, we are very luckyto have Kate Krueger. Kate
Kruger is the founder of HelikonConsulting, a boutique firm that
specializes in syntheticbiology, alternative proteins
and high-tech food. She workswith foundations and
corporations and investors tobring 21st century biotechnology
(00:52):
to food innovation. Kate,welcome to the show.
Kate Kreuger (00:57):
Hi, it's great to be here.
Forrest Meyen (00:59):
So let's start off and just give us a taste of
what is high-tech food. Ourviewers are have probably heard
about some of these alternativesorts of... Beyond Meat I'm sure
people have heard about, but I'msure the field is a lot more
broader than plant-based meatpatties.
Kate Kreuger (01:19):
Yeah, definitely.
A lot of people have maybe heardabout some of the most popular
foods in the space. So theBeyond Burger, the Impossible
Burger. Those two are superexciting. They're part of what I
like to call this kind ofspectrum of new foods. So if you
start on one end, you get foodsthat were invented in the 1960s,
1970s. Things like updated TVdinners, with lots of extrusion
(01:40):
tech protein, similar to cheesedoodle tech, and essentially a
really souped-up version ofcheese doodle tech is what's
used in the Beyond Burger.
That's extremely reductive, butit's a modern update on
extrusion technology with somereally fun additives.
Forrest Meyen (01:57):
What is cheese doodle tech?
Kate Kreuger (01:59):
Cheese doodle tech. Yeah.
Forrest Meyen (02:03):
Sounds interesting.
Kate Kreuger (02:05):
So the cheese doodle is a really pioneering
food in its day. Because it wasone of the early products to
that really involved in washingup ingredients and spitting them
out. Really high temperatures insuch a way that you get these
really nice pieces of proteinthat have different properties
than what they did before. Or inthe case of cheese doodle carbs.
Forrest Meyen (02:29):
Was this something that people bought at
the store? Like a cheese doodle?
Kate Kreuger (02:33):
Oh, yeah, these are like cheese doodles.
Forrest Meyen (02:35):
That's a brand, 'cheese doodle'?
Kate Kreuger (02:40):
they called it a cheese doodle in the obit, so I
was like great.
Forrest Meyen (02:52):
Ok, we'll show a picture.
Kate Kreuger (02:56):
No, you're right, though. I don't actually know
that you're saying and I'mquestioning myself.
Forrest Meyen (03:02):
So tell us more about this cheese doodle tech is
is now you know, been beenrepurposed to make meat burgers
and billion dollar companies.
Kate Kreuger (03:12):
Yeah, essentially.
So that essentially tech of newtypes of protein formulations
that are still rather macroscaleor are definitely where this
kind of new foods be started.
And well, that's reallyexciting. Some of the newer
technologies kind of take thingsto the next level. So the
(03:33):
Impossible Burger is reallyexciting because it's got this,
like hemoglobin protein in it,which actually has a red color,
and it has iron attached to it.
And part of the great thingabout that is that's used
primarily in these newformulations to give you that
high value ingredient that youcan't get elsewhere. And that
uses recombinant proteintechnologies that have been used
(03:54):
in the industrial context sincethe 1990s. But very rarely. So
it's the first time they've beenused as a bulk ingredient food
production. So...
Forrest Meyen (04:06):
What's a recombinant protein technology?
Kate Kreuger (04:09):
Yeah, so that's what's so exciting about this
stuff is you're essentiallysticking a gene from one
organism into another organismthat's better at making a
particular type of protein thatthe gene encodes. So, for
instance, if you want to make alot of like hemoglobin, you
(04:30):
could take that gene from aspecies that has all the
characteristics you want, put itinto another species that can
create a lot of that protein,and then you get better what we
call expression or amount ofthat protein. So a nice clean
example is in the case of forinstance, Perfect Day, which is
(04:53):
a company that makes recombinantmilk proteins. You can take the
gene that encodes for a milkprotein, stick it into another
organism, say, yeast, forinstance, or microflora, and
then that organism will create awhole lot of that protein much
more cheaply. And through muchdifferent production means than
you could otherwise.
Jonathan (05:12):
Is this the similar idea, though, I guess sort of
complement to like a RoundupReady crop that has been a soy
that's been genetically modifiedto be resistant to a particular
type of herbicide. And that'sthrough the recombinant gene
work. And so that's upstreamfrom sort of the plant-based
(05:35):
meat or otherwise, right? Butsimilar sort of under underlying
technology?
Kate Kreuger (05:40):
It's really cool that we can do all sorts of
different genetic manipulations.
So one distinction here is we'rejust making lots of protein to
harvest. So it's in a sense ofmicro-scale version of kind of a
genetic modification. So ratherthan altering an entire plant
that you're going to go put outin the field, you're altering a
(06:00):
smaller microorganism, like ayeast or a microflora, for
instance, to just make a lot ofprotein. But yeah, I mean, these
are the wonders of kind ofgenetic engineering these days.
The number of things we can dois is really impressive.
Jonathan (06:17):
With the growth rates, population of Earth, growing
significantly... I mean there'sthere are initiatives in a lot
of work in trying to figure outhow are we going to keep feeding
the current population we have,given issues around climate
change, etc, and sea-level rise,for example, but also then, the
(06:38):
anticipated addition of abillion more people onto our
planet. So how does that big,big challenge that we're facing
globally, how does that motivateyou to like, how do you see this
role really helping to meet thatkind of challenge? And I mean,
(06:58):
we can't farm enough meat in thetraditional sense now? Is that
the primary sort of issue ofconcern?
Kate Kreuger (07:06):
Yeah, I think that's definitely one thing
that's really top of mind for alot of people. Also, there are
so many things that make thingslike food security, less certain
than we kind of initially thinkit is. Coronavirus, is a great
example, no one expected changesin supply chain distribution.
There are other kind of, I thinkniche cases where we're seeing
(07:29):
some of these concerns crop upeven before they will
necessarily on a global scale.
So places like Singapore, forinstance, that are extremely
high density, where people wouldlike to be able to make their
own food locally. Places that,for instance, have a lot more
energy or geothermal than otherplaces like Iceland. So some of
these places have these kind ofedgier capabilities or wants and
(07:51):
needs that kind of make them inessence, kind of early adopters
of some of these tech types,because they are subject to
different pressures than therest of the world.
Jonathan (08:05):
What's the connection to geothermal, for example?
Kate Kreuger (08:07):
Yeah, no, that's a great question. So there's some
really cool companies in Icelandthat are making high value
proteins in wheat. Usingrecombinant protein technology
to just create tons of this...
what are called growth factors.
Forrest Meyen (08:30):
And this is using the wheat itself to grow the
growth factors?
Kate Kreuger (08:33):
Yeah. Yeah, they're actually using wheat.
Forrest Meyen (08:35):
The growth factor, is this like a hormone
type protein?
Kate Kreuger (08:39):
Yeah, essentially.
So it's a protein that helpscells grow and divide. And it's
one of the types of proteinsthat keep cells a little more
stem. So they don't grow up asfast in some cases, or they stay
alive longer.
Forrest Meyen (09:00):
And is this used in research, or are they feeding
this stuff to people?
Kate Kreuger (09:04):
They feed this stuff to cells in cellular
agriculture sometimes... tomuscle cells. Or, right now,
it's kind of application on themarket is extremely, extremely
expensive cosmetics.
Jonathan (09:22):
Yeah, I wouldn't have associated protein. For example,
if we think about food, to me,protein's protein... are you
getting from eating an egg, asteak, or lentils, for example?
It sounds like there's a lot ofdifferences in terms of... it's
not, the food group of proteinis not just a blanket uniform
(09:43):
kind of material. And so, tohelp us decompose that a bit in
terms of why this is such a keyissue, because it's protein is
what we need in myunderstanding. As a slight
aside, I understand that there'sthe hunter gatherer folks would
be out hunting rabbits andhares. But you can actually
(10:03):
starve to death... a human canstarve to death trying to eat a
bunch just strictly rabbit diet,because it's low protein. Right?
But that's a specific type ofprotein.
Kate Kreuger (10:15):
That's a great question. I actually don't know
about an all rabbit diet. I'msuper curious now.
Forrest Meyen (10:22):
Eating only rabbits or eating only what
rabbits eat?
Kate Kreuger (10:25):
Yeah, that's the other question. Maybe I
misunderstood.
Yeah, man, I have so manyquestions now. That's
fascinating. But to your point,proteins great. And protein is
really interesting because,yeah, like you said, you can
think about it on a lot ofeither size scales, nutritive
(10:46):
scales, functional scales. Andthat's because, you know, when
you think about protein we eat.
Just for kind of nutrition, youcould think about amino acids,
essentially, which are thesmaller building block of
proteins. Every protein's madeout of amino acids. And we need
certain numbers of amino acidsto live and grow and survive,
(11:09):
some our bodies can make, someour bodies can't make. So for
the ones we can't make, it'sreally important that we get it
in our diet. And that's onething we think about when we
think about making sure thatpeople who are vegan, for
instance, have complete proteinin their diet that they get
through different foods. Theinteresting thing though is, if
(11:29):
you zoom in on particularproteins, they do all sorts of
different processes in the body.
Some of them are structural,some of them keep our skin
healthy. Some of them havedifferent functions that cause
cells to enter different growthstages or spread messages, or
(11:56):
just do all sorts of stuff.
Forrest Meyen (11:58):
So like for the different growth phases and
stuff, are you alluding back tothe protein that was used in the
cosmetic... does thiswheat-grown cosmetic protein
make your skin younger actuallyor...?
Kate Kreuger (12:14):
Some people claim that. I don't... I personally
have not looked into this data.
But it might. I'm not rulingthat out because growth factors
are really, they're reallyinteresting, powerful proteins
that in cell culture do keepcells alive and thriving in a
way that's been shown throughmany, many decades of
experiments.
Jonathan (12:36):
That reminds me of almost like a lightweight
version of a stem cell... Stemcells are great. It's a little
bit tricky to get them but so ifwe can maybe use growth factor
as a way to help get some ofthose benefits of having them
(12:56):
appliable to a cell, I guess. Inmy sense, a mechanism to help
promote what we like, then it'sa benefit.
Kate Kreuger (13:04):
Exactly. Yeah, and that's the interesting thing,
too, that's so hard about, likecell ag is you do need to make
Forrest Meyen (13:07):
Yeah, it's just so interesting. This is so
these things like growth factorsto exactly, to your point, ke
fascinating.
Kate Kreuger (13:13):
I'm sorry, I just started monologuing on you guys
p different types of cells growig and productive to the exte
t that you can grow varios tissues out of them. So that's
a big challenge right nows figuring out how to grow the
e growth factors in an economicl way. Things usually hit cosmet
c grade pricing before they ht food grade pricing, because y
(13:34):
u can charge so much more fr cosmetic than you can for
food. So we've hit the pointwhere people can productively
sell growth factors in acosmetic context and make money.
But we haven't yet hit the pointwhere they can sell them in a
price context where you can usethem in food production cost
(13:58):
effectively. So that'sessentially in a nutshell, the
biggest problem that facescellular agriculture right now
is figuring out how to make cellgrowth media, particularly the
growth factors inside cellgrowth media cost effective
enough that you can producelarge amounts of meat. Usually,
I start this explanation in thother direction, but you guy
(14:19):
are really cool. And we kindf dove headfirst into the
ardest part of the scienceefore we even got the service
evel. So my apologies. I feelike I went backwards on you
uys. So we can start all over.
so...
Forrest Meyen (14:39):
No, okay, take us back to the beginning.
Kate Kreuger (14:42):
Yeah, cool. Yeah, sure. So, let's see, where
should we start? So yeah, Imean, you guys asked some great
questions about different typesof protein tech. So we have a
more straightforward re-mushedversion of plant protein
essentially to protein that'smade through some interesting
genetic tricks to give us higherlevels of protein expression
(15:08):
that we can use in a finalproduct. So that would be things
like putting a gene from a cowthat makes milk into microflora
or yeast, creating a ton of thatmilk protein, and then using
that protein to make a foodproduct, and that would be one
kind of straightforward example.
And then, like the whole nextfrontier that we haven't even
hit yet is how do you grow asteak in a lab essentially?
Forrest Meyen (15:37):
Yeah, that's cool. That's what I'm waiting
for when, once they're growingsteaks in labs but as long as
there's good flavor.
Kate Kreuger (15:47):
Yeah, right?
Forrest Meyen (15:47):
I'll be eating that every day.
Kate Kreuger (15:49):
Yeah. So that's the hard stuff.
Jonathan (15:52):
Something to establish here is that there is... And I
don't know this part. I likeyour clarification on that... is
it generally accepted now that ameat-based diet and the broad
sort of vegetarianism at leastin the US is probably on the
order of maybe 5% of thepopulation that a majority of
(16:14):
folks in the US are omnivores,I'd say. And I think meat
consumption is tied to negativeeffects on climate change,
right, or as a driver of climatechange? They would probably be
one point I'd like to have yourassessment on, and then beyond
(16:34):
that, is the politicization offood. And I think that's a
that's a bigger thing, I thinkthat we could explore. But
first, is eating meat bad forthe environment? And why or why
not? And how can we change that?
Kate Kreuger (16:50):
Yeah, so is eating meat bad for the environment? It
definitely has a bigger waterfootprint than a lot of other
types of food that people canconsume for the same portion
size. And it definitely has alarger land footprint. So when
(17:14):
it comes to land footprint andwater footprint, it's almost
certain that some other type ofland based facility production
would very most likely bebetter. When it comes to things
like energy consumption, it's alittle harder to say until we
actually scale any kind ofproduction. And that's kind of a
(17:35):
big open question. I think a lotof people who look into this
question, use lifecycleassessments to kind of validate
whether or not these thingswork. So a lifecycle assessment
is essentially you put in a tonof data about a facility, and
then kind of spit out somenumbers essentially, at the end
as to how much energy is spent,whether or not this is better
(17:57):
than standard manufacturer, etc.
But the problem is, thosemodels, of course, are only as
good as the data you put in. Andsince we don't have really any
real data to put in yet, theresults are very hard to
interpret, in terms of any realmeaning. So it's hard
Forrest Meyen (18:15):
Yeah, I imagine lab-grown meat, right? It's in
this big lab, all these lightsand scientists and they're
feeding it... the carbon impactof that lab-grown meat has to be
pretty big, at least at thispoint, right?
Kate Kreuger (18:33):
Totally. Yeah. I mean, it's like knitting
something at home, right? Imean, that obviously takes way
more time and resources thansome industrial factory where
we're churning out sweaters orsomething. We're still a little
bit closer to an at-home,low-quantity manufacturer than
we are to having any kind ofindustrial-grade situation.
Forrest Meyen (18:56):
What's the biggest synthetic steak that's
been made so far?
Kate Kreuger (19:00):
Ha, that's a good question. So to my knowledge,
there's a company calledWildtype that's done very small
structured bits of salmon. Ithink on the size kind of scale
of sashimi, they may have beenbigger, but to my knowledge,
sashimi is about the biggestthey've done. And that's a
pretty big deal so yeah...
Forrest Meyen (19:21):
Those are actual salmon cells?
Kate Kreuger (19:24):
To my knowledge. I have not eaten this, but yeah,
salmon cells so...
Forrest Meyen (19:37):
I'm just curious how it tastes, but I mean, you
probably wouldn't know that.
Maybe you've talked to someone
Kate Kreuger (19:41):
So generation one, like the very first products,
that's eaten it?
So fat tech is the up and comingarea.
people tended to say they tastedlike dog treats because they
were all muscle cells and cellgrowth media. Before the space
got really interested in fatsand doing fat cells or getting
good fat tech... so this curent generation, I think, has g
(20:01):
t a better handle on tFat's really hot right now on
the alt-food space.
Jonathan (20:14):
Let's look at the politicization component that I
had mentioned earlier, wherethere's for accuracy or
inaccuracy... andvegetarianism... and the
advocacy for weaning folks offof predominantly a meat-based
diet, I'd venture to say is,tend to be perceived more as
(20:38):
like a maybe a elitist, or leftleftist kind of approach or
liberal, maybe, let's say, andso how is that a sort of a
disservice or inaccurate kind ofproposition? Is it accurate? And
then, and then why is it tiedjust to put to the liberal
whatever's and not part of thegeneral?
Kate Kreuger (21:02):
So why is meat even eating tied with
environmental sustainabilityconcerns?
Jonathan (21:10):
Yes, and particularly the politics around that,
because when we politicizeanything, it seems like it
causes... we start to instantlysee a polarization and it makes
it really hard to find thatcenter line of rationality and
moving forward progress. And,and it's not every place, you
(21:31):
can find... you know, even anImpossible Burger is not
everywhere, and they're workingas a company to, you know,
change that. But then evenconsumers, like literally folks
eating it are not necessarilybeing swayed from eating their
steaks, etc. And so I say, as afood industry food, especially
(21:53):
to the high-tech food, it's notquite yet at the level of being
better than the current, to thebaseline, which is an
old-fashioned cow, grow it,slaughter it, prepare it... it's
hard to beat that, or at leastthe perceived quality of a good
angus.
Kate Kreuger (22:12):
Yeah, to break that down a couple ways.
Definitely, the environmentalimpact of plant-based burgers,
including the Beyond, and theImpossible Burger is certainly
better than your average, wholeanimal cow burger production
from a sustainabilitystandpoint. From a taste
standpoint, yeah, there's,there's still some more work to
(22:33):
be done. I think we're not quitethere yet. I think the hope is
that some of these more animalcell based products will
hopefully be more delicious. Ithink there's quite a bit of
promise there, just in terms ofthe ingredients that you can
feed these cells. So you can thecell growth media is extremely
tunable, you can put more fat inthere less fat in there.
(22:56):
Interesting ingredients, youcan...
Forrest Meyen (22:58):
You can grow pre-seasoned meat?
Kate Kreuger (23:00):
Yeah, totally. I think there's so much... the
other thing, too, is if you'vealready gone to the trouble of
growing these cells and cultureand genetically manipulating
them, there's no reason why youcan't genetically manipulate
them in all sorts of extra funways. Right? Like, add some
capsaicin in production or,like, you know, make it a little
bit hot and spicy, or add somefun colors, or I know someone
(23:26):
who's worked on some healthpathways. So you can think about
making essentially golden meatwhere you get more antioxidants
in your meat product. So yeah, Imean, I think the sky's the
limit. So the trick is going tobe hopefully that these new
products will transcendtraditional meat production.
Because you kind of topped outat like wagyu, right? In theory,
(23:48):
if you get, you know, like ahand-massaged cow from a special
genetic lineage, it's verydelicious, but very expensive.
So, I mean, ideally, if youcould do something even better
than that, that'd be prettycool. So that's the dream.
Forrest Meyen (24:04):
Grow something tastier than wagyu.
Kate Kreuger (24:06):
Yes, that's the dream.
Forrest Meyen (24:09):
I mean, I think that would convince a lot of
people to start buying it,right.
Kate Kreuger (24:13):
I mean, food scientists are super gifted. I
mean, back to cheese doodles.
It's hard to do much better thana cheese doodle. So you know.
Forrest Meyen (24:21):
So I did look up a cheese doodle. And that's
basically a Cheeto, right? Like,it's the same process?
Kate Kreuger (24:29):
Yes, I should have said that initially, my
apologies.
Forrest Meyen (24:32):
For our listeners, basically a cheeto...
or a cheese puff or something.
Jonathan (24:39):
So, Kate, you've worked with the who's who of
organizations... in terms of...
on your consulting side ofthings as sort of the frontier
tech consulting some of thoseorganizations and consultancies
being, like MilliporeSigma,IndieBio, XPRIZE, SynBioBeta,
the list goes on... So walk usthrough, how do you go down that
(25:02):
path of vetting the science?
Looking for who's going to payfor this kind of new venture
concept... the technologiesbehind it? How do you think
about end to end the valuecreation and value capture of
high tech food? Because thatsounds to be... I don't
(25:24):
understand... how do wedecompose that kind of problem
set?
Kate Kreuger (25:27):
Yeah, great question. So I'm not sure I'm
going to answer it quite the wayyou're looking for. So let me
know if we need to back up andadd some more kind of thoughts
or different angles. So first ofall, I think one thing that's
really exciting about this spaceis so many people are really
interested. So at this time, forearly stage ventures, a fair
(25:51):
amount of startup based R&D, andother kind of early pursuits,
there's so much interest and somuch enthusiasm, and so much
hope. Quite grounded in manycases, that there are many
investment dollars. So moneyisn't really a pain point in the
(26:11):
startup context, when it comesto pretty competitive
university-side research, itdefinitely is a pain point, we
don't currently have establishedmechanisms to get that
university level funding. Sothat is one of the challenges is
innovation in this space existsalmost solely in startup
context. That said, one of thethings about the startup context
(26:32):
is you can only hire so manypeople at a certain time. And an
early team is going to havesomewhere between two, five,
maybe eight people. And so youcan only get so many really
skill sets represented. Andalso, the space is very siloed.
So in general, becauseintellectual property protection
is so important, ople can'treally talk about what they're
(26:54):
doing very much, and everyone'sjust working really hard on
getting these patents filed, sothere's not a whole lot of
centralized knowledge in thespace outside of the two
nonprofits in the field, whichare the Good Food Institute and
New Harvest. And that's part ofthe reason that I'm able to have
a little bit more of a globalview in this field is because I
(27:15):
come from a traditional sciencebackground, PhD in cell biology,
heavy background inbiochemistry, biophysics,
followed by some time at PerfectDay, and then New Harvest. And
New Harvest is the oldestnonprofit in the space. I was
research director there forthree years and only PhD on
staff. So because of that, mostof the people who were
(27:35):
interested in this space and hadtechnical questions would come
to me. So I got this reallyglobal understanding of what was
going on in the space. Also, theNew Harvest research fellows are
amazing folks at universitiesaround the world, doing a lot of
that cutting edge lab-basedresearch. So in growing that
program, and developing thatprogram, I got a really good
(27:58):
finger on the pulse of theacademic side of the cell-based
meat space. So I'm reallyfortunate in that I kind of have
this, I'd say slightly moreglobal view of the cellular
agriculture space than a lot ofpeople can get. And there's a
whole lot going on. I mean, Ithink that's the exciting thing
about this space is just thewide variety of tech that's
(28:19):
involved. It's everything fromreally academic side biology,
stem-cell biology,biochemistry... really, really
fundamental work all the way toreally applied work, chemical
engineering, more engineering,when it comes to kind of scale
up and such... that it's justvery easy to be able to plug in
(28:46):
some of the spots that might notbe so intuitive if you're only
looking at one part of thepicture.
Forrest Meyen (28:54):
So that's a broad perspective is a big thing that
you bring to customers as partof Helikon is that you are one
of the few people that haveactually been across all these
different silos.
Kate Kreuger (29:10):
Yeah, exactly. And it's the zoom-in zoom-out to
because I think people withscience or technical training,
learn how to ask questions acertain way and learn how to
kind of dig into things acertain way. So that kind of
depth and breadth is, I think,really helpful. So it's kind of
a non answer, because it's alittle bit high level, but yeah.
Forrest Meyen (29:31):
Yeah, you be even more specific, let's say like,
like, I'm a customer of yours,like, what are the types of
things that that I'm going to beasking you?
Kate Kreuger (29:39):
Yeah, it depends what you want to do. So often
times, people will come to mefrom I'd say, one of three
places. One is maybe you're aninvestor or company who wants to
get into this space, and youhave a company you're looking
into, and maybe you have anexpertise in one part of
science. Say for instance,you're deep tech firm, but you
(30:00):
tend to focus on more physics ordifferent parts of deep tech
innovation. Or you might havefinance backgrounds, we might
have a food background, and youwant to know more how the
science works in the space, butthere's just a ton of biology
going on, then people come to meand they essentially have me
work with them a bit on the kindof back end of understanding how
(30:24):
these companies work, in somecase, mentoring these companies
and coming up with reasonablemilestones for investors to
support these companiesappropriately. That's one
context. Sometimes people cometo me with their big, very
exciting biological dreams. Sothey want to do something cool
and new, it hasn't been donebefore. They want to make a new
(30:48):
kind of product line or a newfacility or just something crazy
and fun and exciting. And I'mkind of fortunate enough to be
in this position where peoplecome to me with their wild
biotech dreams. So then we gofrom there. That's, that's one
of the things I really love ishelping people break these
things down. And there are a lotof really talented people out
(31:13):
there. And you know, if you kindof have a sense for what people
can do, and where things canfit... that's a large role I can
play as helping people figureout what technical execution
around some of these larger,more frontier tech projects
could look like.
Forrest Meyen (31:29):
So listeners if you have a wild biological
dream, contact Kate, and she'llhelp you make it happen. I have
a question, you talked about,like, all of the potential of
this technology, you couldalmost do anything with it is...
is there anything that kind ofscares you aboutFranken food, or
(31:56):
these these other things, peoplehave called these genetically
modified foods. Is there somepotential to do damage or harm
with this technology?
Kate Kreuger (32:06):
Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, there's
all this potential to do thingsthat we don't expect to do. I
mean, I don't know that peoplereally thought too hard about
health consequences aroundTwinkies. But you know, I really
(32:28):
trust the FDA and USDA, a wholelot. They're really good at
regulation. So they're currentlyworking on a regulatory
framework around some of this.
And yeah, I really don't worrytoo much I trust our government
to do a good job.
Forrest Meyen (32:51):
Okay, so like the FDA will do like human trials
are on it before these newproducts are released?
Kate Kreuger (32:59):
So I'm not sure about human trials, but what
they'll do is they'll regulatethe process what's called
pre-harvest. So whatever is intanks growing will be FDA and
then post-harvest is USDA. Theclosest kind of regulatory
framework to all this that'sused for the protein production
I talked about earlier is thisprocess called GRAS, which is
(33:22):
generally respected as safe. AndGRAS is a process has been
around since the '90s. It wasused for industrial enzymes we
use in detergents. And in manycases, it does involve some
animal testing. So theImpossible Burger has a GRAS
filing, and people can look atif they're interested. But
(33:44):
because that process is so wellknown, that's kind of something
we think of as possibly on thetemplate spectrum for these meat
products. This is the closest weknow because this is going to be
kind of a new whole cloth sortof pursuit, but you know, people
are working really hard on thesafety around this tech so it's
(34:08):
definitely a challenge I thinkpeople are going to have to make
sure things are potentiallycooked really well or labeled
really well or... but I meanmeats not exactly the most... I
mean I definitely wouldn't wantto eat a lot of raw meat or
stick raw meat on a wound forinstance, or I mean it's kind of
dangerous stuff, if you thinkabout it, so within certain
(34:31):
parameters.
Forrest Meyen (34:33):
So we will still have to cook our synthetic
burgers?
Kate Kreuger (34:39):
I suspect but I mean sashimi someday, right? I
mean, it's got to happen.
Jonathan (34:45):
On the microbiome side of things, and so this would be
sort of the non-cooked foodswhere if I'm plucking out like a
sugar snap pea like right offfrom where it's growing, it's
going to have this kind ofdifferent kind of biology going
(35:06):
on in it not just the peaitself... that's a living thing.
It's a plant. But also all thekind of the bugs etc. that are
within there at the micro level.
And so is this something that wewould be unfortunately missing
out on with the more of the sortof lab grown foods that we as
(35:30):
the folks eating it, we'd bemissing out on the richness,
that biodiversity that occurredwhen we eat something right off
the vine, versus a very curatedalmost like literally sterile
kind of environment? And thatcould that be doing a.... maybe
you could go so far as saying adisservice to the longer term
(35:53):
parts of humanity in a way ourmicrobiomes work, where we
thrive off having that kind ofstimulating variety of different
kinds of flora and fauna kind ofgoing into us?
Kate Kreuger (36:05):
Yeah, I love that question, actually. Because it
kind of starts from a place thatI think is easy to forget, which
is cell cultures really sterile.
It has to be. So these products,by nature have been so much
cleaner than I think a lot of usmight initially think because
that's how you have to makesomething in a lab setting.
(36:26):
Otherwise, you can't get growthat the scale that you need. But
to your point, yeah, it would bedifferent. definitely wouldn't
have the same microbes around itor anything like that. You know,
kind of goes on the list of themany border-synth foods we eat
like ethylene-gas tomatoes, forinstance. You know, that's how
(36:53):
we get tomatoes to be red on ourplates, right as they're picked
green, so they don't bruise andthen in the either groceries or
in the truck leading to thegroceries, they're treated with
this gas called ethylene thatmakes them ripen really nicely
turn red.
Forrest Meyen (37:09):
I didn't know that. Actually, yeah, it sounds
kind of scary.
Kate Kreuger (37:16):
Yeah, so actually, I heard this from folks at NASA
as they were talking about doingall these like experiments with
seedlings, you know, at spacetrying to get these seedlings to
sprout, but the seedlingsweren't sprouting that well. And
they realized this because therewas excess ethylene floating
around the space station. Andonce they scrubbed the ethylene
out of there, the littleseedlings could grow no trouble.
(37:39):
So yeah, because ethyleneimpairs plant growth. It's like
a death kind of signal so.
Jonathan (37:48):
Wow, now I'm kind of feeling like instead of going
from being an omnivore to avegetarian, I might as well just
go being full on fast, like allthe time, just skip food, or
maybe eat Oreos. I sometimes goon an Oreo binge.
Kate Kreuger (38:04):
No definitely, food is so weird.
Jonathan (38:07):
Yes. Well, take us back. Take us back a little bit
of time to kid Kate. What wasshe seeing and experiencing that
eventually led to where you aretoday as being an expert on
high-tech food?
Kate Kreuger (38:26):
Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I think
I'm in one of the fortunatepositions where I couldn't have
dreamed about being where I amtoday, earlier in my life. And
that's an extremely fortunatething, because it's a really
exciting place to be.
Forrest Meyen (38:43):
What are you dreaming about as a kid?
Kate Kreuger (38:45):
Yeah, that's a good question. So let's see. I
kind of wanted to be everythingI really got into paleontology.
I like the idea of digging upbones. Every really liked the
idea of being a cement truckdriver. I really liked cement
trucks... pretty small backthen. But you know, they they're
just really cool. Yeah, I mean,I kind of wanted to do a little
(39:09):
bit of everything. Eventually, Ikind of thought, Well, you know,
it fell in love with actuallyLatin and Greek in high school.
And it's like, oh, man, I wantto go to do classics. But it's
just, you know, on a kind of awhim, I thought, well I'll cover
my bases and make sure I takepre med requirements just
because it's always good to havejob plans, and lo and behold, I
(39:34):
really, really liked biology andchemistry, way more than I
expected. So I ended up being abiochem major working in a lab a
whole lot. Science is just sucha beautiful and fascinating
thing. So it's kind of all gonefrom there.
Forrest Meyen (39:50):
Wow, so you just kind of discovered it along your
way?
Kate Kreuger (39:54):
Yeah. Yeah, I give a lot of credit to my undergrad.
It really kind of pushed me thatway.
Forrest Meyen (40:01):
And how did you get to the point of starting
consulting company in thisspace? Like, what, you know, how
did you get into that business?
Kate Kreuger (40:11):
Yeah, it's a good question. So I was finishing up
my PhD, and I essentially wentdown the world's deepest
internet, rabbit hole, came upwith cell ag. Started out this
whole process of getting into abrand new field. And it's really
just grown. I mean, the needsfor technical consulting, I'd
(40:32):
say really showed up prettyrecently, as more mainstream
investors, mainstreamcorporations, companies got
involved in this space. It'sgone from being this super niche
kind of thing that very fewpeople knew about, it was kind
of like Impossible. And that wasabout it, a handful of
companies, very little fundingto just being this huge kind of
(40:56):
force that's happening today. Soyeah, there was a need for it.
And I kind of jumped off on itand started doing it. So it's
been an exciting ride.
Jonathan (41:10):
I think that's something that for a variety of
our audience members, some ofthem come from high academic
pedigree PhDs from schools atYale, etc. and love the STEM
components and the research. Andthey, but there's always that
(41:31):
presentation of academia versusindustry. And sometimes, and
maybe it's for lack of exposure,maybe it depends on the program
or school or environment or, inthe academic bubble, it can look
really scary out in industry.
Maybe it actually is kind ofscary, in some ways. But
nevertheless, there can besometimes a perception of maybe
(41:55):
a push or resistance, that it isone or the other. And now, in a
sense, you have definitely sortof... in industry in terms of
the kind of consulting thatyou're doing, these
implications, but there's astrong academic component to
this. Right. I mean, from fromyour background, but also to the
(42:16):
kinds of folks that you'reworking with. So could you help
us understand some of theexperiences you've had in terms
of working with theseinterdisciplinary kinds of
teams, sometimes being the onlyPhD on a team, or other times
working with folks who are supergood and accredited on what
(42:36):
they're doing, but may not havethis broader perspective that
someone like you can can bringto the table of having worked in
the industry and balancing thoseaspects?
Kate Kreuger (42:50):
Yeah, I mean, I really like that question from a
whole lot of angles. Because Ithink this is something that a
lot of us from kind of moretraditional academic backgrounds
do struggle with a lot is, Ithink a lot of us have gotten
really good at doing certainthings, we've spent a really,
really long time gaining certainskill sets, we're used in a
certain sense, at least I was tokind of, you know, you finish
(43:11):
year four of grad school, you goon to year five, you have
committee meetings on aschedule. That doesn't make it
easy, but it makes it known. AndI think a lot of us, at least,
on some level, I appreciatedthat on some level, I hated it.
But on some level, it does giveyou kind of a certainty in your
mind. But I think one thing thatis important to remember is the
(43:35):
price of freedom is uncertainty.
And so you kind of venture intothat unknown, and you're
definitely taking more risks,but you also have more
opportunities. So which can bescary and can be great. And I
think one of the things I'verealized that's really
interesting is... woah how do Isay this... yeah, there's
(43:58):
definitely value in both sidesof things. And I think one thing
that I really noticed issometimes it's really hard for
people who are extremely good ata certain skill set, to be able
to come into contact with peoplethat could really benefit from
(44:19):
that skill set. And so that's,that's essentially where I see
myself playing a whole lot isbecause because of my deep
technical background and abilityto kind of understand these
problems in such a way that Ican work with people who are
extremely adept at solving theseproblems, on the one hand, and
on the other, know enough aboutthe macro-sense, the landscape,
(44:42):
and also kind of working in thestartup environment that are a
little bit quicker and dirtier.
So I've learned how to breakdown problems in certain ways
that I don't think isnecessarily something that a
person acquires in manycontexts. So it's interesting,
(45:02):
it's really cool to kind of see,now that I've worked with people
from more backgrounds and kindof that come from more places
what, what you kind of do indifferent environments to tune
things. One thing I have reallyenjoyed in my last kind of...
now that I'm doing consultingagain, I really like working
with technical people, and it'sbeen so gratifying to work with
(45:24):
more technical people. And it'sa really interesting kind of
cross-training exercise to workwith people from just so many
different backgrounds. It'sreally fun and interesting, and
it's always something new.
Forrest Meyen (45:40):
Alright, so what we'll do some rapid fire. Let's
see, the first one. If you couldhave any flavor of synthetic
meat, what flavor would that be?
Kate Kreuger (45:52):
Banana.
Jonathan (45:55):
Okay.
Forrest Meyen (45:56):
All right, we'll do another one. When do you
think what year do you thinkI'll be able to buy a synthetic
steak from the grocery store?
Kate Kreuger (46:05):
Oh man, such a hard question. 2025?
Forrest Meyen (46:10):
All right.
Kate Kreuger (46:11):
Maybe more like 2035?
Forrest Meyen (46:14):
That's not too far. Do you have a quick one,
Jmill? I'm still thinking aboutthe banana flavored meat.
Jonathan (46:26):
That's a weird one to me. I don't know... that would
make King Kong proud maybe? Butshould we make foods that look
like one thing and taste likesomething different? Would this
be a fad? Or are there goodpsychological reasons for us to
(46:47):
do that for example? Kind oflike how if you put food on a
small plate, it intentionallykeeps our portions a little bit
smaller, because we like to eatwhat's on our plate. So make the
plate small, eat less. Is therea way to do that with food by
making it taste different? Orhave different health qualities
than what it looks like?
Kate Kreuger (47:07):
Sure. I mean, I think this is another
interesting potential thing. Onething I think is cool is the
idea of increasing the fibercontent of meat products. So you
So you can hide my broccoli inmy steak?
get that juicy kind of meatsituation potentially on like,
what they talked about are thesematerials called scaffolds,
which you grow cells on top of,so that the cells can get a nice
perfusion of nutrients whilethey're growing. But if you
(47:30):
think of a scaffold that samemade out of mushrooms, or
asparagus, or celery, or anysort of kind of vegetable, it's
pretty exciting.
Yeah, totally. It could be abrocco-steak, I mean you
wouldn't have to choose. Yeah, Imean, I think that stuff is
(47:53):
really interesting. So we'll seewhat happens. Can I ask you guys
some rapid fire?
Forrest Meyen (47:59):
Yeah, ask us some rapid fire questions.
Kate Kreuger (48:02):
Okay, what do you guys think is the hardest part
of making lab grown meat? Likefrom your background? Where
would you see the biggestchallenges?
Forrest Meyen (48:10):
I think probably getting all the cells to stick
together, but in a nice texture.
I mean, I don't know. I'm anaerospace engineer so.
Kate Kreuger (48:21):
Yeah, no, that's actually what I'm curious about.
Like what engineering challengeswould you see? Or is that just
like too far afield to be eveninteresting?
Forrest Meyen (48:29):
I mean, I imagine like scaling, it would be, you
know, that the biggestchallenge, right? Like, how do
you create a meat factory? LikeI understand how, you can make
bioreactors but you know,scaling something to the point
where you're popping outrealistic steaks, I think that
would be a big challenge.
Kate Kreuger (48:50):
Yeah, that's the one I can't wrap my head around.
Jonathan (48:54):
For me, it would seem like cell-based meat... a
challenge, the big one is how toget it to that's a heterogeneous
mix of stuff. Because, to me, atleast for me, like if I look at
a piece of steak, that's not amonocellular construct. So I
don't have the foggiest idea howwe'd effectively be able to
blend in these kinds ofdifferent cells and have them
(49:16):
all like Forrest said, have themstick together. But really have
them be happy together and intaste great doing that. Because
I think taste is a big importantpart of this and I'd rather not
be eating stuff that's asartificially flavored and
covered with like red 40 andblue 20 and stuff. Yeah, my
perception of processed food...
Yeah, I mean, processed foodbefore the coloring and
(49:38):
flavoring is sort of likebrownish off-white puree or
something. So maybe the cheesedoodles come out a little more
like they should until yousprinkle neon orange on them.
Kate Kreuger (49:56):
Yeah I mean, that's the question too, what
the appeal is going to be likefor two different people. But
yeah, actually, there's somesuper interesting research
around things like fat marblingand stuff going on at UCLA. So
yeah... Dr. Amy Rowat's labactually should be really
interesting if you're interestedin getting more into the meat
concept?
Jonathan (50:17):
And how do you keep sort of smart on the space?
Because this is the intersectionof a couple of different
industries? Or is it a smallgroup of people that that are
like lightning rods for theadvancement?
Kate Kreuger (50:29):
It used to be a small group of people, and I
think they're still key players.
I mean, there are a couple labsthat are really at the top of
the field, I'd say, but yeah,it's just absolutely ballooning.
It used to be that, you know,when a paper came out at New
Harvest, almost certainly, we'dknow who the authors were just
as a given. And nowadays, newstuff comes out all the time.
(50:52):
And it's, it's really exciting.
So yeah, it's hard to keep upwith these days. It's kind of at
the level now, where you justkind of do what you can and
there's some really, there's newstuff all the time.
Forrest Meyen (51:07):
Well, we'll have to get back together. Once we
get that, you know, those labground steaks off the line from
the supermarket and have apodcast where we do a taste test
together. It'd be a lot of fun.
We'd like to really thank youfor being on the show today.
Appreciate it. And I guess we'dlike to give our guests one last
moment to give any parting wordsof either, I don't know, advice
(51:30):
to people watching the show thatare maybe interested in getting
involved in this new food-techindustry.
Kate Kreuger (51:42):
Yeah, I mean, especially for people who are
finishing up PhDs in any kind ofbioscience, or I guess even in
some senses engineering, too.
There's just so many jobs inthis space right now, especially
this last year. The hiring hasbeen pretty intense. So if
you're interested, a good Slackchannel to get on as gf ideas,
people post jobs there all thetime. Take a look on LinkedIn.
(52:04):
See who's raised another round.
Yeah, it's a great time to getin the space on the science
side. Hi, I'm Kate Krieger ofHelikon Consulting, stay tough.
Forrest Meyen (52:17):
Well, thanks for joining us for this episode of
Tough Tech Today. If you enjoyedthe show, please like the video,
subscribe, leave a comment,we'll answer all of your
comments. And if you'relistening on a podcast leave us
a five star review. In twoweeks, we will be talking with
Matt Goldstein. He's themanaging director of M12, that's
(52:39):
a venture fund backed solely byMicrosoft.
I think one thing that is important to remember is
(00:03):
the price of freedom isuncertainty. And so you kind of
venture into that unknown andyou're definitely taking more
risks, but you also have moreopportunities.
Announcer (00:15):
Welcome to Tough Tech Today with Meyen and Miller.
This is the premiere showfeaturing trailblazers who are
building technologies today tosolve tomorrow's toughest
challenges.
Forrest Meyen (00:30):
Welcome to today's episode of Tough Tech
Today. Today, we are very luckyto have Kate Krueger. Kate
Kruger is the founder of HelikonConsulting, a boutique firm that
specializes in syntheticbiology, alternative proteins
and high-tech food. She workswith foundations and
corporations and investors tobring 21st century biotechnology
(00:52):
to food innovation. Kate,welcome to the show.
Kate Kreuger (00:57):
Hi, it's great to be here.
Forrest Meyen (00:59):
So let's start off and just give us a taste of
what is high-tech food. Ourviewers are have probably heard
about some of these alternativesorts of... Beyond Meat I'm sure
people have heard about, but I'msure the field is a lot more
broader than plant-based meatpatties.
Kate Kreuger (01:19):
Yeah, definitely.
A lot of people have maybe heardabout some of the most popular
foods in the space. So theBeyond Burger, the Impossible
Burger. Those two are superexciting. They're part of what I
like to call this kind ofspectrum of new foods. So if you
start on one end, you get foodsthat were invented in the 1960s,
1970s. Things like updated TVdinners, with lots of extrusion
(01:40):
tech protein, similar to cheesedoodle tech, and essentially a
really souped-up version ofcheese doodle tech is what's
used in the Beyond Burger.
That's extremely reductive, butit's a modern update on
extrusion technology with somereally fun additives.
Forrest Meyen (01:57):
What is cheese doodle tech?
Kate Kreuger (01:59):
Cheese doodle tech. Yeah.
Forrest Meyen (02:03):
Sounds interesting.
Kate Kreuger (02:05):
So the cheese doodle is a really pioneering
food in its day. Because it wasone of the early products to
that really involved in washingup ingredients and spitting them
out. Really high temperatures insuch a way that you get these
really nice pieces of proteinthat have different properties
than what they did before. Or inthe case of cheese doodle carbs.
Forrest Meyen (02:29):
Was this something that people bought at
the store? Like a cheese doodle?
Kate Kreuger (02:33):
Oh, yeah, these are like cheese doodles.
Forrest Meyen (02:35):
That's a brand, 'cheese doodle'?
Kate Kreuger (02:40):
they called it a cheese doodle in the obit, so I
was like great.
Forrest Meyen (02:52):
Ok, we'll show a picture.
Kate Kreuger (02:56):
No, you're right, though. I don't actually know
that you're saying and I'mquestioning myself.
Forrest Meyen (03:02):
So tell us more about this cheese doodle tech is
is now you know, been beenrepurposed to make meat burgers
and billion dollar companies.
Kate Kreuger (03:12):
Yeah, essentially.
So that essentially tech of newtypes of protein formulations
that are still rather macroscaleor are definitely where this
kind of new foods be started.
And well, that's reallyexciting. Some of the newer
technologies kind of take thingsto the next level. So the
(03:33):
Impossible Burger is reallyexciting because it's got this,
like hemoglobin protein in it,which actually has a red color,
and it has iron attached to it.
And part of the great thingabout that is that's used
primarily in these newformulations to give you that
high value ingredient that youcan't get elsewhere. And that
uses recombinant proteintechnologies that have been used
(03:54):
in the industrial context sincethe 1990s. But very rarely. So
it's the first time they've beenused as a bulk ingredient food
production. So...
Forrest Meyen (04:06):
What's a recombinant protein technology?
Kate Kreuger (04:09):
Yeah, so that's what's so exciting about this
stuff is you're essentiallysticking a gene from one
organism into another organismthat's better at making a
particular type of protein thatthe gene encodes. So, for
instance, if you want to make alot of like hemoglobin, you
(04:30):
could take that gene from aspecies that has all the
characteristics you want, put itinto another species that can
create a lot of that protein,and then you get better what we
call expression or amount ofthat protein. So a nice clean
example is in the case of forinstance, Perfect Day, which is
(04:53):
a company that makes recombinantmilk proteins. You can take the
gene that encodes for a milkprotein, stick it into another
organism, say, yeast, forinstance, or microflora, and
then that organism will create awhole lot of that protein much
more cheaply. And through muchdifferent production means than
you could otherwise.
Jonathan (05:12):
Is this the similar idea, though, I guess sort of
complement to like a RoundupReady crop that has been a soy
that's been genetically modifiedto be resistant to a particular
type of herbicide. And that'sthrough the recombinant gene
work. And so that's upstreamfrom sort of the plant-based
(05:35):
meat or otherwise, right? Butsimilar sort of under underlying
technology?
Kate Kreuger (05:40):
It's really cool that we can do all sorts of
different genetic manipulations.
So one distinction here is we'rejust making lots of protein to
harvest. So it's in a sense ofmicro-scale version of kind of a
genetic modification. So ratherthan altering an entire plant
that you're going to go put outin the field, you're altering a
(06:00):
smaller microorganism, like ayeast or a microflora, for
instance, to just make a lot ofprotein. But yeah, I mean, these
are the wonders of kind ofgenetic engineering these days.
The number of things we can dois is really impressive.
Jonathan (06:17):
With the growth rates, population of Earth, growing
significantly... I mean there'sthere are initiatives in a lot
of work in trying to figure outhow are we going to keep feeding
the current population we have,given issues around climate
change, etc, and sea-level rise,for example, but also then, the
(06:38):
anticipated addition of abillion more people onto our
planet. So how does that big,big challenge that we're facing
globally, how does that motivateyou to like, how do you see this
role really helping to meet thatkind of challenge? And I mean,
(06:58):
we can't farm enough meat in thetraditional sense now? Is that
the primary sort of issue ofconcern?
Kate Kreuger (07:06):
Yeah, I think that's definitely one thing
that's really top of mind for alot of people. Also, there are
so many things that make thingslike food security, less certain
than we kind of initially thinkit is. Coronavirus, is a great
example, no one expected changesin supply chain distribution.
There are other kind of, I thinkniche cases where we're seeing
(07:29):
some of these concerns crop upeven before they will
necessarily on a global scale.
So places like Singapore, forinstance, that are extremely
high density, where people wouldlike to be able to make their
own food locally. Places that,for instance, have a lot more
energy or geothermal than otherplaces like Iceland. So some of
these places have these kind ofedgier capabilities or wants and
(07:51):
needs that kind of make them inessence, kind of early adopters
of some of these tech types,because they are subject to
different pressures than therest of the world.
Jonathan (08:05):
What's the connection to geothermal, for example?
Kate Kreuger (08:07):
Yeah, no, that's a great question. So there's some
really cool companies in Icelandthat are making high value
proteins in wheat. Usingrecombinant protein technology
to just create tons of this...
what are called growth factors.
Forrest Meyen (08:30):
And this is using the wheat itself to grow the
growth factors?
Kate Kreuger (08:33):
Yeah. Yeah, they're actually using wheat.
Forrest Meyen (08:35):
The growth factor, is this like a hormone
type protein?
Kate Kreuger (08:39):
Yeah, essentially.
So it's a protein that helpscells grow and divide. And it's
one of the types of proteinsthat keep cells a little more
stem. So they don't grow up asfast in some cases, or they stay
alive longer.
Forrest Meyen (09:00):
And is this used in research, or are they feeding
this stuff to people?
Kate Kreuger (09:04):
They feed this stuff to cells in cellular
agriculture sometimes... tomuscle cells. Or, right now,
it's kind of application on themarket is extremely, extremely
expensive cosmetics.
Jonathan (09:22):
Yeah, I wouldn't have associated protein. For example,
if we think about food, to me,protein's protein... are you
getting from eating an egg, asteak, or lentils, for example?
It sounds like there's a lot ofdifferences in terms of... it's
not, the food group of proteinis not just a blanket uniform
(09:43):
kind of material. And so, tohelp us decompose that a bit in
terms of why this is such a keyissue, because it's protein is
what we need in myunderstanding. As a slight
aside, I understand that there'sthe hunter gatherer folks would
be out hunting rabbits andhares. But you can actually
(10:03):
starve to death... a human canstarve to death trying to eat a
bunch just strictly rabbit diet,because it's low protein. Right?
But that's a specific type ofprotein.
Kate Kreuger (10:15):
That's a great question. I actually don't know
about an all rabbit diet. I'msuper curious now.
Forrest Meyen (10:22):
Eating only rabbits or eating only what
rabbits eat?
Kate Kreuger (10:25):
Yeah, that's the other question. Maybe I
misunderstood.
Yeah, man, I have so manyquestions now. That's
fascinating. But to your point,proteins great. And protein is
really interesting because,yeah, like you said, you can
think about it on a lot ofeither size scales, nutritive
(10:46):
scales, functional scales. Andthat's because, you know, when
you think about protein we eat.
Just for kind of nutrition, youcould think about amino acids,
essentially, which are thesmaller building block of
proteins. Every protein's madeout of amino acids. And we need
certain numbers of amino acidsto live and grow and survive,
(11:09):
some our bodies can make, someour bodies can't make. So for
the ones we can't make, it'sreally important that we get it
in our diet. And that's onething we think about when we
think about making sure thatpeople who are vegan, for
instance, have complete proteinin their diet that they get
through different foods. Theinteresting thing though is, if
(11:29):
you zoom in on particularproteins, they do all sorts of
different processes in the body.
Some of them are structural,some of them keep our skin
healthy. Some of them havedifferent functions that cause
cells to enter different growthstages or spread messages, or
(11:56):
just do all sorts of stuff.
Forrest Meyen (11:58):
So like for the different growth phases and
stuff, are you alluding back tothe protein that was used in the
cosmetic... does thiswheat-grown cosmetic protein
make your skin younger actuallyor...?
Kate Kreuger (12:14):
Some people claim that. I don't... I personally
have not looked into this data.
But it might. I'm not rulingthat out because growth factors
are really, they're reallyinteresting, powerful proteins
that in cell culture do keepcells alive and thriving in a
way that's been shown throughmany, many decades of
experiments.
Jonathan (12:36):
That reminds me of almost like a lightweight
version of a stem cell... Stemcells are great. It's a little
bit tricky to get them but so ifwe can maybe use growth factor
as a way to help get some ofthose benefits of having them
(12:56):
appliable to a cell, I guess. Inmy sense, a mechanism to help
promote what we like, then it'sa benefit.
Kate Kreuger (13:04):
Exactly. Yeah, and that's the interesting thing,
too, that's so hard about, likecell ag is you do need to make
Forrest Meyen (13:07):
Yeah, it's just so interesting. This is so
these things like growth factorsto exactly, to your point, ke
fascinating.
Kate Kreuger (13:13):
I'm sorry, I just started monologuing on you guys
p different types of cells growig and productive to the exte
t that you can grow varios tissues out of them. So that's
a big challenge right nows figuring out how to grow the
e growth factors in an economicl way. Things usually hit cosmet
c grade pricing before they ht food grade pricing, because y
(13:34):
u can charge so much more fr cosmetic than you can for
food. So we've hit the pointwhere people can productively
sell growth factors in acosmetic context and make money.
But we haven't yet hit the pointwhere they can sell them in a
price context where you can usethem in food production cost
(13:58):
effectively. So that'sessentially in a nutshell, the
biggest problem that facescellular agriculture right now
is figuring out how to make cellgrowth media, particularly the
growth factors inside cellgrowth media cost effective
enough that you can producelarge amounts of meat. Usually,
I start this explanation in thother direction, but you guy
(14:19):
are really cool. And we kindf dove headfirst into the
ardest part of the scienceefore we even got the service
evel. So my apologies. I feelike I went backwards on you
uys. So we can start all over.
so...
Forrest Meyen (14:39):
No, okay, take us back to the beginning.
Kate Kreuger (14:42):
Yeah, cool. Yeah, sure. So, let's see, where
should we start? So yeah, Imean, you guys asked some great
questions about different typesof protein tech. So we have a
more straightforward re-mushedversion of plant protein
essentially to protein that'smade through some interesting
genetic tricks to give us higherlevels of protein expression
(15:08):
that we can use in a finalproduct. So that would be things
like putting a gene from a cowthat makes milk into microflora
or yeast, creating a ton of thatmilk protein, and then using
that protein to make a foodproduct, and that would be one
kind of straightforward example.
And then, like the whole nextfrontier that we haven't even
hit yet is how do you grow asteak in a lab essentially?
Forrest Meyen (15:37):
Yeah, that's cool. That's what I'm waiting
for when, once they're growingsteaks in labs but as long as
there's good flavor.
Kate Kreuger (15:47):
Yeah, right?
Forrest Meyen (15:47):
I'll be eating that every day.
Kate Kreuger (15:49):
Yeah. So that's the hard stuff.
Jonathan (15:52):
Something to establish here is that there is... And I
don't know this part. I likeyour clarification on that... is
it generally accepted now that ameat-based diet and the broad
sort of vegetarianism at leastin the US is probably on the
order of maybe 5% of thepopulation that a majority of
(16:14):
folks in the US are omnivores,I'd say. And I think meat
consumption is tied to negativeeffects on climate change,
right, or as a driver of climatechange? They would probably be
one point I'd like to have yourassessment on, and then beyond
(16:34):
that, is the politicization offood. And I think that's a
that's a bigger thing, I thinkthat we could explore. But
first, is eating meat bad forthe environment? And why or why
not? And how can we change that?
Kate Kreuger (16:50):
Yeah, so is eating meat bad for the environment? It
definitely has a bigger waterfootprint than a lot of other
types of food that people canconsume for the same portion
size. And it definitely has alarger land footprint. So when
(17:14):
it comes to land footprint andwater footprint, it's almost
certain that some other type ofland based facility production
would very most likely bebetter. When it comes to things
like energy consumption, it's alittle harder to say until we
actually scale any kind ofproduction. And that's kind of a
(17:35):
big open question. I think a lotof people who look into this
question, use lifecycleassessments to kind of validate
whether or not these thingswork. So a lifecycle assessment
is essentially you put in a tonof data about a facility, and
then kind of spit out somenumbers essentially, at the end
as to how much energy is spent,whether or not this is better
(17:57):
than standard manufacturer, etc.
But the problem is, thosemodels, of course, are only as
good as the data you put in. Andsince we don't have really any
real data to put in yet, theresults are very hard to
interpret, in terms of any realmeaning. So it's hard
Forrest Meyen (18:15):
Yeah, I imagine lab-grown meat, right? It's in
this big lab, all these lightsand scientists and they're
feeding it... the carbon impactof that lab-grown meat has to be
pretty big, at least at thispoint, right?
Kate Kreuger (18:33):
Totally. Yeah. I mean, it's like knitting
something at home, right? Imean, that obviously takes way
more time and resources thansome industrial factory where
we're churning out sweaters orsomething. We're still a little
bit closer to an at-home,low-quantity manufacturer than
we are to having any kind ofindustrial-grade situation.
Forrest Meyen (18:56):
What's the biggest synthetic steak that's
been made so far?
Kate Kreuger (19:00):
Ha, that's a good question. So to my knowledge,
there's a company calledWildtype that's done very small
structured bits of salmon. Ithink on the size kind of scale
of sashimi, they may have beenbigger, but to my knowledge,
sashimi is about the biggestthey've done. And that's a
pretty big deal so yeah...
Forrest Meyen (19:21):
Those are actual salmon cells?
Kate Kreuger (19:24):
To my knowledge. I have not eaten this, but yeah,
salmon cells so...
Forrest Meyen (19:37):
I'm just curious how it tastes, but I mean, you
probably wouldn't know that.
Maybe you've talked to someone
Kate Kreuger (19:41):
So generation one, like the very first products,
that's eaten it?
So fat tech is the up and comingarea.
people tended to say they tastedlike dog treats because they
were all muscle cells and cellgrowth media. Before the space
got really interested in fatsand doing fat cells or getting
good fat tech... so this curent generation, I think, has g
(20:01):
t a better handle on tFat's really hot right now on
the alt-food space.
Jonathan (20:14):
Let's look at the politicization component that I
had mentioned earlier, wherethere's for accuracy or
inaccuracy... andvegetarianism... and the
advocacy for weaning folks offof predominantly a meat-based
diet, I'd venture to say is,tend to be perceived more as
(20:38):
like a maybe a elitist, or leftleftist kind of approach or
liberal, maybe, let's say, andso how is that a sort of a
disservice or inaccurate kind ofproposition? Is it accurate? And
then, and then why is it tiedjust to put to the liberal
whatever's and not part of thegeneral?
Kate Kreuger (21:02):
So why is meat even eating tied with
environmental sustainabilityconcerns?
Jonathan (21:10):
Yes, and particularly the politics around that,
because when we politicizeanything, it seems like it
causes... we start to instantlysee a polarization and it makes
it really hard to find thatcenter line of rationality and
moving forward progress. And,and it's not every place, you
(21:31):
can find... you know, even anImpossible Burger is not
everywhere, and they're workingas a company to, you know,
change that. But then evenconsumers, like literally folks
eating it are not necessarilybeing swayed from eating their
steaks, etc. And so I say, as afood industry food, especially
(21:53):
to the high-tech food, it's notquite yet at the level of being
better than the current, to thebaseline, which is an
old-fashioned cow, grow it,slaughter it, prepare it... it's
hard to beat that, or at leastthe perceived quality of a good
angus.
Kate Kreuger (22:12):
Yeah, to break that down a couple ways.
Definitely, the environmentalimpact of plant-based burgers,
including the Beyond, and theImpossible Burger is certainly
better than your average, wholeanimal cow burger production
from a sustainabilitystandpoint. From a taste
standpoint, yeah, there's,there's still some more work to
(22:33):
be done. I think we're not quitethere yet. I think the hope is
that some of these more animalcell based products will
hopefully be more delicious. Ithink there's quite a bit of
promise there, just in terms ofthe ingredients that you can
feed these cells. So you can thecell growth media is extremely
tunable, you can put more fat inthere less fat in there.
(22:56):
Interesting ingredients, youcan...
Forrest Meyen (22:58):
You can grow pre-seasoned meat?
Kate Kreuger (23:00):
Yeah, totally. I think there's so much... the
other thing, too, is if you'vealready gone to the trouble of
growing these cells and cultureand genetically manipulating
them, there's no reason why youcan't genetically manipulate
them in all sorts of extra funways. Right? Like, add some
capsaicin in production or,like, you know, make it a little
bit hot and spicy, or add somefun colors, or I know someone
(23:26):
who's worked on some healthpathways. So you can think about
making essentially golden meatwhere you get more antioxidants
in your meat product. So yeah, Imean, I think the sky's the
limit. So the trick is going tobe hopefully that these new
products will transcendtraditional meat production.
Because you kind of topped outat like wagyu, right? In theory,
(23:48):
if you get, you know, like ahand-massaged cow from a special
genetic lineage, it's verydelicious, but very expensive.
So, I mean, ideally, if youcould do something even better
than that, that'd be prettycool. So that's the dream.
Forrest Meyen (24:04):
Grow something tastier than wagyu.
Kate Kreuger (24:06):
Yes, that's the dream.
Forrest Meyen (24:09):
I mean, I think that would convince a lot of
people to start buying it,right.
Kate Kreuger (24:13):
I mean, food scientists are super gifted. I
mean, back to cheese doodles.
It's hard to do much better thana cheese doodle. So you know.
Forrest Meyen (24:21):
So I did look up a cheese doodle. And that's
basically a Cheeto, right? Like,it's the same process?
Kate Kreuger (24:29):
Yes, I should have said that initially, my
apologies.
Forrest Meyen (24:32):
For our listeners, basically a cheeto...
or a cheese puff or something.
Jonathan (24:39):
So, Kate, you've worked with the who's who of
organizations... in terms of...
on your consulting side ofthings as sort of the frontier
tech consulting some of thoseorganizations and consultancies
being, like MilliporeSigma,IndieBio, XPRIZE, SynBioBeta,
the list goes on... So walk usthrough, how do you go down that
(25:02):
path of vetting the science?
Looking for who's going to payfor this kind of new venture
concept... the technologiesbehind it? How do you think
about end to end the valuecreation and value capture of
high tech food? Because thatsounds to be... I don't
(25:24):
understand... how do wedecompose that kind of problem
set?
Kate Kreuger (25:27):
Yeah, great question. So I'm not sure I'm
going to answer it quite the wayyou're looking for. So let me
know if we need to back up andadd some more kind of thoughts
or different angles. So first ofall, I think one thing that's
really exciting about this spaceis so many people are really
interested. So at this time, forearly stage ventures, a fair
(25:51):
amount of startup based R&D, andother kind of early pursuits,
there's so much interest and somuch enthusiasm, and so much
hope. Quite grounded in manycases, that there are many
investment dollars. So moneyisn't really a pain point in the
(26:11):
startup context, when it comesto pretty competitive
university-side research, itdefinitely is a pain point, we
don't currently have establishedmechanisms to get that
university level funding. Sothat is one of the challenges is
innovation in this space existsalmost solely in startup
context. That said, one of thethings about the startup context
(26:32):
is you can only hire so manypeople at a certain time. And an
early team is going to havesomewhere between two, five,
maybe eight people. And so youcan only get so many really
skill sets represented. Andalso, the space is very siloed.
So in general, becauseintellectual property protection
is so important, ople can'treally talk about what they're
(26:54):
doing very much, and everyone'sjust working really hard on
getting these patents filed, sothere's not a whole lot of
centralized knowledge in thespace outside of the two
nonprofits in the field, whichare the Good Food Institute and
New Harvest. And that's part ofthe reason that I'm able to have
a little bit more of a globalview in this field is because I
(27:15):
come from a traditional sciencebackground, PhD in cell biology,
heavy background inbiochemistry, biophysics,
followed by some time at PerfectDay, and then New Harvest. And
New Harvest is the oldestnonprofit in the space. I was
research director there forthree years and only PhD on
staff. So because of that, mostof the people who were
(27:35):
interested in this space and hadtechnical questions would come
to me. So I got this reallyglobal understanding of what was
going on in the space. Also, theNew Harvest research fellows are
amazing folks at universitiesaround the world, doing a lot of
that cutting edge lab-basedresearch. So in growing that
program, and developing thatprogram, I got a really good
(27:58):
finger on the pulse of theacademic side of the cell-based
meat space. So I'm reallyfortunate in that I kind of have
this, I'd say slightly moreglobal view of the cellular
agriculture space than a lot ofpeople can get. And there's a
whole lot going on. I mean, Ithink that's the exciting thing
about this space is just thewide variety of tech that's
(28:19):
involved. It's everything fromreally academic side biology,
stem-cell biology,biochemistry... really, really
fundamental work all the way toreally applied work, chemical
engineering, more engineering,when it comes to kind of scale
up and such... that it's justvery easy to be able to plug in
(28:46):
some of the spots that might notbe so intuitive if you're only
looking at one part of thepicture.
Forrest Meyen (28:54):
So that's a broad perspective is a big thing that
you bring to customers as partof Helikon is that you are one
of the few people that haveactually been across all these
different silos.
Kate Kreuger (29:10):
Yeah, exactly. And it's the zoom-in zoom-out to
because I think people withscience or technical training,
learn how to ask questions acertain way and learn how to
kind of dig into things acertain way. So that kind of
depth and breadth is, I think,really helpful. So it's kind of
a non answer, because it's alittle bit high level, but yeah.
Forrest Meyen (29:31):
Yeah, you be even more specific, let's say like,
like, I'm a customer of yours,like, what are the types of
things that that I'm going to beasking you?
Kate Kreuger (29:39):
Yeah, it depends what you want to do. So often
times, people will come to mefrom I'd say, one of three
places. One is maybe you're aninvestor or company who wants to
get into this space, and youhave a company you're looking
into, and maybe you have anexpertise in one part of
science. Say for instance,you're deep tech firm, but you
(30:00):
tend to focus on more physics ordifferent parts of deep tech
innovation. Or you might havefinance backgrounds, we might
have a food background, and youwant to know more how the
science works in the space, butthere's just a ton of biology
going on, then people come to meand they essentially have me
work with them a bit on the kindof back end of understanding how
(30:24):
these companies work, in somecase, mentoring these companies
and coming up with reasonablemilestones for investors to
support these companiesappropriately. That's one
context. Sometimes people cometo me with their big, very
exciting biological dreams. Sothey want to do something cool
and new, it hasn't been donebefore. They want to make a new
(30:48):
kind of product line or a newfacility or just something crazy
and fun and exciting. And I'mkind of fortunate enough to be
in this position where peoplecome to me with their wild
biotech dreams. So then we gofrom there. That's, that's one
of the things I really love ishelping people break these
things down. And there are a lotof really talented people out
(31:13):
there. And you know, if you kindof have a sense for what people
can do, and where things canfit... that's a large role I can
play as helping people figureout what technical execution
around some of these larger,more frontier tech projects
could look like.
Forrest Meyen (31:29):
So listeners if you have a wild biological
dream, contact Kate, and she'llhelp you make it happen. I have
a question, you talked about,like, all of the potential of
this technology, you couldalmost do anything with it is...
is there anything that kind ofscares you aboutFranken food, or
(31:56):
these these other things, peoplehave called these genetically
modified foods. Is there somepotential to do damage or harm
with this technology?
Kate Kreuger (32:06):
Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, there's
all this potential to do thingsthat we don't expect to do. I
mean, I don't know that peoplereally thought too hard about
health consequences aroundTwinkies. But you know, I really
(32:28):
trust the FDA and USDA, a wholelot. They're really good at
regulation. So they're currentlyworking on a regulatory
framework around some of this.
And yeah, I really don't worrytoo much I trust our government
to do a good job.
Forrest Meyen (32:51):
Okay, so like the FDA will do like human trials
are on it before these newproducts are released?
Kate Kreuger (32:59):
So I'm not sure about human trials, but what
they'll do is they'll regulatethe process what's called
pre-harvest. So whatever is intanks growing will be FDA and
then post-harvest is USDA. Theclosest kind of regulatory
framework to all this that'sused for the protein production
I talked about earlier is thisprocess called GRAS, which is
(33:22):
generally respected as safe. AndGRAS is a process has been
around since the '90s. It wasused for industrial enzymes we
use in detergents. And in manycases, it does involve some
animal testing. So theImpossible Burger has a GRAS
filing, and people can look atif they're interested. But
(33:44):
because that process is so wellknown, that's kind of something
we think of as possibly on thetemplate spectrum for these meat
products. This is the closest weknow because this is going to be
kind of a new whole cloth sortof pursuit, but you know, people
are working really hard on thesafety around this tech so it's
(34:08):
definitely a challenge I thinkpeople are going to have to make
sure things are potentiallycooked really well or labeled
really well or... but I meanmeats not exactly the most... I
mean I definitely wouldn't wantto eat a lot of raw meat or
stick raw meat on a wound forinstance, or I mean it's kind of
dangerous stuff, if you thinkabout it, so within certain
(34:31):
parameters.
Forrest Meyen (34:33):
So we will still have to cook our synthetic
burgers?
Kate Kreuger (34:39):
I suspect but I mean sashimi someday, right? I
mean, it's got to happen.
Jonathan (34:45):
On the microbiome side of things, and so this would be
sort of the non-cooked foodswhere if I'm plucking out like a
sugar snap pea like right offfrom where it's growing, it's
going to have this kind ofdifferent kind of biology going
(35:06):
on in it not just the peaitself... that's a living thing.
It's a plant. But also all thekind of the bugs etc. that are
within there at the micro level.
And so is this something that wewould be unfortunately missing
out on with the more of the sortof lab grown foods that we as
(35:30):
the folks eating it, we'd bemissing out on the richness,
that biodiversity that occurredwhen we eat something right off
the vine, versus a very curatedalmost like literally sterile
kind of environment? And thatcould that be doing a.... maybe
you could go so far as saying adisservice to the longer term
(35:53):
parts of humanity in a way ourmicrobiomes work, where we
thrive off having that kind ofstimulating variety of different
kinds of flora and fauna kind ofgoing into us?
Kate Kreuger (36:05):
Yeah, I love that question, actually. Because it
kind of starts from a place thatI think is easy to forget, which
is cell cultures really sterile.
It has to be. So these products,by nature have been so much
cleaner than I think a lot of usmight initially think because
that's how you have to makesomething in a lab setting.
(36:26):
Otherwise, you can't get growthat the scale that you need. But
to your point, yeah, it would bedifferent. definitely wouldn't
have the same microbes around itor anything like that. You know,
kind of goes on the list of themany border-synth foods we eat
like ethylene-gas tomatoes, forinstance. You know, that's how
(36:53):
we get tomatoes to be red on ourplates, right as they're picked
green, so they don't bruise andthen in the either groceries or
in the truck leading to thegroceries, they're treated with
this gas called ethylene thatmakes them ripen really nicely
turn red.
Forrest Meyen (37:09):
I didn't know that. Actually, yeah, it sounds
kind of scary.
Kate Kreuger (37:16):
Yeah, so actually, I heard this from folks at NASA
as they were talking about doingall these like experiments with
seedlings, you know, at spacetrying to get these seedlings to
sprout, but the seedlingsweren't sprouting that well. And
they realized this because therewas excess ethylene floating
around the space station. Andonce they scrubbed the ethylene
out of there, the littleseedlings could grow no trouble.
(37:39):
So yeah, because ethyleneimpairs plant growth. It's like
a death kind of signal so.
Jonathan (37:48):
Wow, now I'm kind of feeling like instead of going
from being an omnivore to avegetarian, I might as well just
go being full on fast, like allthe time, just skip food, or
maybe eat Oreos. I sometimes goon an Oreo binge.
Kate Kreuger (38:04):
No definitely, food is so weird.
Jonathan (38:07):
Yes. Well, take us back. Take us back a little bit
of time to kid Kate. What wasshe seeing and experiencing that
eventually led to where you aretoday as being an expert on
high-tech food?
Kate Kreuger (38:26):
Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I think
I'm in one of the fortunatepositions where I couldn't have
dreamed about being where I amtoday, earlier in my life. And
that's an extremely fortunatething, because it's a really
exciting place to be.
Forrest Meyen (38:43):
What are you dreaming about as a kid?
Kate Kreuger (38:45):
Yeah, that's a good question. So let's see. I
kind of wanted to be everythingI really got into paleontology.
I like the idea of digging upbones. Every really liked the
idea of being a cement truckdriver. I really liked cement
trucks... pretty small backthen. But you know, they they're
just really cool. Yeah, I mean,I kind of wanted to do a little
(39:09):
bit of everything. Eventually, Ikind of thought, Well, you know,
it fell in love with actuallyLatin and Greek in high school.
And it's like, oh, man, I wantto go to do classics. But it's
just, you know, on a kind of awhim, I thought, well I'll cover
my bases and make sure I takepre med requirements just
because it's always good to havejob plans, and lo and behold, I
(39:34):
really, really liked biology andchemistry, way more than I
expected. So I ended up being abiochem major working in a lab a
whole lot. Science is just sucha beautiful and fascinating
thing. So it's kind of all gonefrom there.
Forrest Meyen (39:50):
Wow, so you just kind of discovered it along your
way?
Kate Kreuger (39:54):
Yeah. Yeah, I give a lot of credit to my undergrad.
It really kind of pushed me thatway.
Forrest Meyen (40:01):
And how did you get to the point of starting
consulting company in thisspace? Like, what, you know, how
did you get into that business?
Kate Kreuger (40:11):
Yeah, it's a good question. So I was finishing up
my PhD, and I essentially wentdown the world's deepest
internet, rabbit hole, came upwith cell ag. Started out this
whole process of getting into abrand new field. And it's really
just grown. I mean, the needsfor technical consulting, I'd
(40:32):
say really showed up prettyrecently, as more mainstream
investors, mainstreamcorporations, companies got
involved in this space. It'sgone from being this super niche
kind of thing that very fewpeople knew about, it was kind
of like Impossible. And that wasabout it, a handful of
companies, very little fundingto just being this huge kind of
(40:56):
force that's happening today. Soyeah, there was a need for it.
And I kind of jumped off on itand started doing it. So it's
been an exciting ride.
Jonathan (41:10):
I think that's something that for a variety of
our audience members, some ofthem come from high academic
pedigree PhDs from schools atYale, etc. and love the STEM
components and the research. Andthey, but there's always that
(41:31):
presentation of academia versusindustry. And sometimes, and
maybe it's for lack of exposure,maybe it depends on the program
or school or environment or, inthe academic bubble, it can look
really scary out in industry.
Maybe it actually is kind ofscary, in some ways. But
nevertheless, there can besometimes a perception of maybe
(41:55):
a push or resistance, that it isone or the other. And now, in a
sense, you have definitely sortof... in industry in terms of
the kind of consulting thatyou're doing, these
implications, but there's astrong academic component to
this. Right. I mean, from fromyour background, but also to the
(42:16):
kinds of folks that you'reworking with. So could you help
us understand some of theexperiences you've had in terms
of working with theseinterdisciplinary kinds of
teams, sometimes being the onlyPhD on a team, or other times
working with folks who are supergood and accredited on what
(42:36):
they're doing, but may not havethis broader perspective that
someone like you can can bringto the table of having worked in
the industry and balancing thoseaspects?
Kate Kreuger (42:50):
Yeah, I mean, I really like that question from a
whole lot of angles. Because Ithink this is something that a
lot of us from kind of moretraditional academic backgrounds
do struggle with a lot is, Ithink a lot of us have gotten
really good at doing certainthings, we've spent a really,
really long time gaining certainskill sets, we're used in a
certain sense, at least I was tokind of, you know, you finish
(43:11):
year four of grad school, you goon to year five, you have
committee meetings on aschedule. That doesn't make it
easy, but it makes it known. AndI think a lot of us, at least,
on some level, I appreciatedthat on some level, I hated it.
But on some level, it does giveyou kind of a certainty in your
mind. But I think one thing thatis important to remember is the
(43:35):
price of freedom is uncertainty.
And so you kind of venture intothat unknown, and you're
definitely taking more risks,but you also have more
opportunities. So which can bescary and can be great. And I
think one of the things I'verealized that's really
interesting is... woah how do Isay this... yeah, there's
(43:58):
definitely value in both sidesof things. And I think one thing
that I really noticed issometimes it's really hard for
people who are extremely good ata certain skill set, to be able
to come into contact with peoplethat could really benefit from
(44:19):
that skill set. And so that's,that's essentially where I see
myself playing a whole lot isbecause because of my deep
technical background and abilityto kind of understand these
problems in such a way that Ican work with people who are
extremely adept at solving theseproblems, on the one hand, and
on the other, know enough aboutthe macro-sense, the landscape,
(44:42):
and also kind of working in thestartup environment that are a
little bit quicker and dirtier.
So I've learned how to breakdown problems in certain ways
that I don't think isnecessarily something that a
person acquires in manycontexts. So it's interesting,
(45:02):
it's really cool to kind of see,now that I've worked with people
from more backgrounds and kindof that come from more places
what, what you kind of do indifferent environments to tune
things. One thing I have reallyenjoyed in my last kind of...
now that I'm doing consultingagain, I really like working
with technical people, and it'sbeen so gratifying to work with
(45:24):
more technical people. And it'sa really interesting kind of
cross-training exercise to workwith people from just so many
different backgrounds. It'sreally fun and interesting, and
it's always something new.
Forrest Meyen (45:40):
Alright, so what we'll do some rapid fire. Let's
see, the first one. If you couldhave any flavor of synthetic
meat, what flavor would that be?
Kate Kreuger (45:52):
Banana.
Jonathan (45:55):
Okay.
Forrest Meyen (45:56):
All right, we'll do another one. When do you
think what year do you thinkI'll be able to buy a synthetic
steak from the grocery store?
Kate Kreuger (46:05):
Oh man, such a hard question. 2025?
Forrest Meyen (46:10):
All right.
Kate Kreuger (46:11):
Maybe more like 2035?
Forrest Meyen (46:14):
That's not too far. Do you have a quick one,
Jmill? I'm still thinking aboutthe banana flavored meat.
Jonathan (46:26):
That's a weird one to me. I don't know... that would
make King Kong proud maybe? Butshould we make foods that look
like one thing and taste likesomething different? Would this
be a fad? Or are there goodpsychological reasons for us to
(46:47):
do that for example? Kind oflike how if you put food on a
small plate, it intentionallykeeps our portions a little bit
smaller, because we like to eatwhat's on our plate. So make the
plate small, eat less. Is therea way to do that with food by
making it taste different? Orhave different health qualities
than what it looks like?
Kate Kreuger (47:07):
Sure. I mean, I think this is another
interesting potential thing. Onething I think is cool is the
idea of increasing the fibercontent of meat products. So you
So you can hide my broccoli inmy steak?
get that juicy kind of meatsituation potentially on like,
what they talked about are thesematerials called scaffolds,
which you grow cells on top of,so that the cells can get a nice
perfusion of nutrients whilethey're growing. But if you
(47:30):
think of a scaffold that samemade out of mushrooms, or
asparagus, or celery, or anysort of kind of vegetable, it's
pretty exciting.
Yeah, totally. It could be abrocco-steak, I mean you
wouldn't have to choose. Yeah, Imean, I think that stuff is
(47:53):
really interesting. So we'll seewhat happens. Can I ask you guys
some rapid fire?
Forrest Meyen (47:59):
Yeah, ask us some rapid fire questions.
Kate Kreuger (48:02):
Okay, what do you guys think is the hardest part
of making lab grown meat? Likefrom your background? Where
would you see the biggestchallenges?
Forrest Meyen (48:10):
I think probably getting all the cells to stick
together, but in a nice texture.
I mean, I don't know. I'm anaerospace engineer so.
Kate Kreuger (48:21):
Yeah, no, that's actually what I'm curious about.
Like what engineering challengeswould you see? Or is that just
like too far afield to be eveninteresting?
Forrest Meyen (48:29):
I mean, I imagine like scaling, it would be, you
know, that the biggestchallenge, right? Like, how do
you create a meat factory? LikeI understand how, you can make
bioreactors but you know,scaling something to the point
where you're popping outrealistic steaks, I think that
would be a big challenge.
Kate Kreuger (48:50):
Yeah, that's the one I can't wrap my head around.
Jonathan (48:54):
For me, it would seem like cell-based meat... a
challenge, the big one is how toget it to that's a heterogeneous
mix of stuff. Because, to me, atleast for me, like if I look at
a piece of steak, that's not amonocellular construct. So I
don't have the foggiest idea howwe'd effectively be able to
blend in these kinds ofdifferent cells and have them
(49:16):
all like Forrest said, have themstick together. But really have
them be happy together and intaste great doing that. Because
I think taste is a big importantpart of this and I'd rather not
be eating stuff that's asartificially flavored and
covered with like red 40 andblue 20 and stuff. Yeah, my
perception of processed food...
Yeah, I mean, processed foodbefore the coloring and
(49:38):
flavoring is sort of likebrownish off-white puree or
something. So maybe the cheesedoodles come out a little more
like they should until yousprinkle neon orange on them.
Kate Kreuger (49:56):
Yeah I mean, that's the question too, what
the appeal is going to be likefor two different people. But
yeah, actually, there's somesuper interesting research
around things like fat marblingand stuff going on at UCLA. So
yeah... Dr. Amy Rowat's labactually should be really
interesting if you're interestedin getting more into the meat
concept?
Jonathan (50:17):
And how do you keep sort of smart on the space?
Because this is the intersectionof a couple of different
industries? Or is it a smallgroup of people that that are
like lightning rods for theadvancement?
Kate Kreuger (50:29):
It used to be a small group of people, and I
think they're still key players.
I mean, there are a couple labsthat are really at the top of
the field, I'd say, but yeah,it's just absolutely ballooning.
It used to be that, you know,when a paper came out at New
Harvest, almost certainly, we'dknow who the authors were just
as a given. And nowadays, newstuff comes out all the time.
(50:52):
And it's, it's really exciting.
So yeah, it's hard to keep upwith these days. It's kind of at
the level now, where you justkind of do what you can and
there's some really, there's newstuff all the time.
Forrest Meyen (51:07):
Well, we'll have to get back together. Once we
get that, you know, those labground steaks off the line from
the supermarket and have apodcast where we do a taste test
together. It'd be a lot of fun.
We'd like to really thank youfor being on the show today.
Appreciate it. And I guess we'dlike to give our guests one last
moment to give any parting wordsof either, I don't know, advice
(51:30):
to people watching the show thatare maybe interested in getting
involved in this new food-techindustry.
Kate Kreuger (51:42):
Yeah, I mean, especially for people who are
finishing up PhDs in any kind ofbioscience, or I guess even in
some senses engineering, too.
There's just so many jobs inthis space right now, especially
this last year. The hiring hasbeen pretty intense. So if
you're interested, a good Slackchannel to get on as gf ideas,
people post jobs there all thetime. Take a look on LinkedIn.
(52:04):
See who's raised another round.
Yeah, it's a great time to getin the space on the science
side. Hi, I'm Kate Krieger ofHelikon Consulting, stay tough.
Forrest Meyen (52:17):
Well, thanks for joining us for this episode of
Tough Tech Today. If you enjoyedthe show, please like the video,
subscribe, leave a comment,we'll answer all of your
comments. And if you'relistening on a podcast leave us
a five star review. In twoweeks, we will be talking with
Matt Goldstein. He's themanaging director of M12, that's
(52:39):
a venture fund backed solely byMicrosoft.
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