Future farmer: Ersi Emmanouilidou, Process Engineer
In this series we are interviewing our future farmers at Mosa Meat and what inspires them as pioneers of cellular agriculture. Today we spoke with Ersi Emmanouilidou, a Process Engineer on our Production Team.
Ersi, where are you from and what brought you to Mosa Meat?
I grew up in Thessaloniki, Greece. Growing up I was always interested in how life works, from dinosaurs to animals to bacteria and viruses. I decided to pursue a Bachelor’s Degree in Biology, with specialisation in molecular biology, at the University of Crete.
After University I worked as a research associate in Athens for about a year and half, when I realised I wanted to do something more applied within the biology sector. I had always enjoyed drinking beer, and knew this was a product made from fermentation. I discovered two courses in Brewing in the UK and decided to pursue my Master’s in Brewing & Distilling at Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh.
Afterwards, I worked in breweries for the next five years in the UK. This year, I moved to Belgium due to my partner’s job. I realised I wanted to do something different from brewing, but not completely unrelated. I found the role of Process Engineer at Mosa Meat and thought this was a very cool opportunity to apply my knowledge to an important mission.
What would you say is the main difference between brewing beer and cultivating beef?
Cultivating beef takes more time and is a more complex process. Firstly, cells take a much longer time to grow than yeast.
Secondly, yeast is a whole organism found in nature. You would never see a cow cell outside in nature. Cells are supposed to live within a cow, with the supportive mechanism of a whole cow. This makes them much more sensitive.
This is why what we are doing here, essentially creating a cow’s metabolism in a bioreactor, is much more complex.
What is a typical day like for you at Mosa?
Typically I come in, check my emails, try to organise orders, and schedule certain meetings with suppliers. We also have meetings with Jaco [Head of Production at Mosa Meat] to organise weekly schedules of team members and train new members – our team has grown quickly in the last few months!
In my previous role we were brewing beer in steel tanks, here we are using bioreactors. We’re looking at how to keep these bioreactors clean, preparing cells for the bioreactors, and checking the parameters required there so the cells grow.
We frequently collaborate with the Bioprocess Development and Automation teams to scale up the R&D processes. When we are designing the experiments, they are also in the meetings to combine their experience to how we can translate that to a larger scale.
What inspires you most about working here?
What inspires me is that this process can change the world. When solar panels were first developed it was extremely expensive, and quite inefficient. Over the years, that process was optimised.
It will be the same curve here, whereby we want to take animals out of factories. The cow is the most polluting animal in terms of greenhouse gas production. I find it important that we are focusing on that.
The end goal of making cultivated beef available to the masses is what I find really motivating.
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