The Science of Alt Protein: Innovations from rising researchers

Event description

Don’t miss our next Science of Alt Protein seminar, where we’ll learn from two PhD students working on innovative projects to advance alternative protein science.

Jorge Guadalupe

• Jorge will share a study that investigates the remarkable potential of random cellulose acetate nanofibers to create scaffolds that allow for the cultivation of myoblasts and adipocytes. Jorge and his colleagues unveiled the unparalleled capabilities of the scaffold in facilitating muscle differentiation, independent of differentiation media, by exploiting the YAP/TAZ-related mechanotransduction pathway. In addition, they have successfully developed a novel process for stacking cell-loaded CAN sheets, enabling the production of a three-dimensional chicken meat product that contains both muscle cells and adipocytes.

Anna Thomas

• Anna and her colleagues investigate what Large Language Models (LLMs) can contribute to alternative protein development. In collaboration with food scientists, they evaluated LLMs on experimental design and sensory prediction tasks using a recent dataset of plant-based meats. For experimental design, food science experts estimated that collaboration with an LLM can reduce time spent by 45% on average, compared to 22% for collaboration with another expert human food scientist. Their work, recently accepted at the International Conference on Machine Learning 2025, represents an initial exploration of what LLMs can contribute to the alternative protein domain and highlights both promising capabilities and limitations.

Meet the speakers

Jorge Guadalupe

PHD STUDENT IN CELL BIOLOGY
FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OF MINAS GERAIS

Jorge Guadalupe is a biologist with a Master’s degree in Cell Biology from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) in Brazil. During his master’s research, he developed a thesis focused on scaffolding for cultured meat and contributed to the creation of the first cultivated chicken steak in Latin America. He is currently pursuing a PhD at UFMG, where his research centers on hydrogels for 3D bioprinting of cultivated meat. In addition, he collaborates on several projects with Professors Dr. Luciana Andrade and Dr. Erika Jorge, including work on cultivated fat, cultivated leather, bioreactor design, and microcarrier development. Recently, Jorge was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to carry out a project at the Kaplan Lab in the field of metabolic engineering for cell growth optimization within the cultured meat bioprocess.

Anna Thomas

PHD STUDENT IN COMPUTER SCIENCE
STANFORD UNIVERSITY

Anna Thomas is a computer science PhD student at Stanford. Previously, she received her bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Stanford, with a minor in computer science, and her master’s degree in statistics from the University of Cambridge.