Conference / Meeting

Lab-grown meat: a new type of food for environmental sustainability?

2 March 2022
Start time 
6:00 pm
Collegio Clesio - Via Santa Margherita 13, Trento
Seminar room
Organizer: 
Scientific Committee of Collegio Clesio
Target audience: 
UniTrento students
Attendance: 
Free – Registration required
Registration deadline: 
1 March 2022, 12:00
Contact details: 
collegioclesio@unitn.it -
0461 - 282345

Intensive animal farming is today the only solution to meet the demand for meat, but it comes with a huge environmental impact. This industry in fact uses 30% of the Earth's dry land and around 8% of freshwater, generating 17% of the planet's total greenhouse gases. 

The environmental impact of intensive farming, the forecasts on meat demand and the ethical implications of animal slaughter are the reasons behind studies that explore the possibility of "creating" meat in the lab using cultured animal cells.

Compared to conventional meat, it is estimated that this technology could reduce the consumption of energy, soil and water, while significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, at the moment, products based on this technology are not yet accessible because of a scientific-technological gap and of the costs associated with this sector. 

This meeting will present, on one hand, the advancements necessary to make the industrial production of "lab-grown meat" technologically sustainable and, on the other, aspects related to this new industry that concern the perception that people have towards a product that replicates the characteristics of meat through innovative technologies.

Welcome address:

  • Paolo Carta, Director of Collegio Clesio

Lecturer:

  • Luciano Conti, CIBIO UniTrento

Luciano Conti graduated in Biological Sciences from the University of Milan and earned a PhD in Cellular Biotechnology at the University of Brescia. From 2001, he continued his research work at the University of Edinburgh and returned to Italy in 2004. He currently is Associate Professor of Applied Biology at the Department of Cellular, Computational and Integrative Biology - CIBIO of the University of Trento, where his work is focused on the study of pluripotent and neural stem cells for the development of cellular models of neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric diseases. More recently, his scientific interests have extended to the study of stem cells for in-vitro culturing of meat.