Engineering the Future with Mushrooms and Diamonds

This event took place on Friday, March 18, 2022 at 11:30 AM UTC.

Venue: Austin Convention Center, Room 18CD For centuries, ‘natural’ foods, fibers, cosmetics and other products have been thought to be better for people and the planet. Now, significant advances in synthetic biology and other innovations have made vegan silk and leather, lab-grown diamonds, and bioengineered foods possible - consumer products grown in a lab that can be better for both people and planet than their ‘natural’ counterparts. Today we are seeing this new market become more mainstream, with Impossible Whoppers, Stan Smith Mylo sneakers and Pandora’s lab-created diamonds leading the charge across industries for a better future. How can these new technologies help solve some of the world’s greatest challenges, and will consumers accept that ‘unnatural’ is sometimes better for nature?