Event description

The food system contributes approximately a third of global greenhouse gas emissions. Transitioning food production from resource-intensive industrial animal agriculture towards microbial processes is critical for minimizing these planetary impacts and feeding a growing population. Filamentous fungi, a diverse group of microorganisms that includes molds and mushrooms, are uniquely positioned to lead this shift toward a more sustainable food system.

Dr. Hill-Maini will discuss his work bridging approaches from gastronomy, synthetic biology, and systems biology, to unlock the potential of filamentous fungi for sustainable and delicious foods. Working between the lab, restaurant kitchens, and traditional producers, Dr. Hill-Maini and his team have uncovered mechanisms for efficiently upcycling food waste into human food, created new synthetic biology tools that enabled fungal bioengineering for enhanced nutrition and sensory appeal, and translated lab discoveries to new dishes at Michelin-starred restaurants. In the long term, this work should enable efforts to design fungal foods for health, sustainability, and flavor.

Meet the speaker

Vayu hill-maini, ph. D.

Vayu Hill-Maini, Ph.D.

INCOMING ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF BIOENGINEERING
STANFORD UNIVERSITY

Vayu is a scientist, chef, educator and a current postdoctoral fellow working with Jay Keasling at University of California, Berkeley. Vayu fell in love with cooking at a young age in his multicultural home in Stockholm, Sweden. He first moved to the U.S to work in restaurants, but the flavors, textures, and sensations of the kitchen eventually led him to scientific research. He earned his PhD in Biochemistry from Harvard University working in the lab of Emily Balskus, where he identified and characterized strains and enzymes involved in the metabolism of prominent drugs and dietary compounds in the human gut microbiota. As a Miller Fellow at UC Berkeley, Vayu has combined his background from the kitchen and the laboratory to tackle challenges in the food system. His current research characterizes and engineers filamentous fungi to produce sustainable and delicious foods. This highly interdisciplinary work has led to new synthetic biology tools for edible fungi, discovery of a fungus domesticated for conversion of waste to food, and new dishes at Michelin star restaurants, including Alchemist in Copenhagen. Vayu loves sharing his passion for food and STEM with the public, and runs the organization STEAM Chefs, which uses cooking to teach science in classrooms all around the world. He will continue this work running his own research group as an assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford University starting in September 2024.

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