This presentation will discuss key scale-up barriers, including high-density cell cultivation, mass transfer, cell retention, media utilization, and bioreactor design. It will also highlight emerging engineering strategies to integrate food-compatible biomaterials, perfusion culture, and process control toward more scalable and resource-efficient cultivated meat production.

Ning Xiang

Ning Xiang, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in Cellular Agriculture and Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in the Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science at the University of Alberta. Her research focuses on developing scalable biomanufacturing technologies for cell-based foods, including edible scaffolds and microcarriers, high-density cell culture, perfusion bioreactors, and media recycling. She received her Ph.D. in Agricultural and Biological Engineering from Purdue University and conducted postdoctoral research at Tufts University. Before joining the University of Alberta, she also worked in academia and industry on cellular agriculture and cultivated meat technologies. Her current research program brings together food science, biomaterials, and bioprocess engineering to address the scale-up challenges limiting the commercialization of cellular agriculture.

The Cellular Agriculture Lab at the University of Alberta

The Cellular Agriculture Lab at the University of Alberta develops enabling technologies for next-generation food biomanufacturing. Our research integrates cell culture, biomaterials, food science, and bioprocess engineering, with particular strengths in high-density cultivation, food-compatible scaffolds and cell-retention systems, media and resource recycling, and advanced bioreactor design. The goal is to develop scalable and sustainable manufacturing platforms for cultivated meat and other cell-based food products.