3rd Cellular Agriculture Conference

8-9 October, 2026

City Hall, Lund

Conference Speakers

Nélida Leiva Eriksson

Founder and CEO of Ironic Biotech.

A biotechnology scientist at Lund University who has been studying iron proteins for more than 15 years, as well as developing genetic engineering and fermentation techniques to scale-up production processes in vitro.

Margrethe Therkildsen

Professor at the Department of Food Science – Differentiated & Biofunctional Foods at Aarhus University.

Margrethe works on sustainable production, feeding, muscle growth and development, and the linkage with post mortem changes in meat specifically proteolysis, fatty acid composition and final meat quality. This includes studies on muscle cell culture, live animals, meat and processed meat, biochemical markers for meat quality and use of explorative methods as enzymology, proteomics, transcriptomics as well as traditional meat quality methods.

Hanna Tuomisto

Professor in sustainable food systems at the Department of Agricultural Sciences at the University of Helsinki.

Hanna’s expertise include life cycle assessment, sustainable farming systems, carbon footprint, cellular agriculture and novel foods.

Björn Lárus Örvar

Co-Founder of ORF Genetics, an innovative plant biotechnology company.

CSO & EVP of Business Development at ORF Genetics.

Emilia Nordlund

Research Manager in Industrial Biotechnology and Food at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland

Emilia holds a DSc (Tech) in Bioprocess Engineering and is a Docent in Food Biotechnology at the University of Helsinki. Her expertise spans plant‑based ingredient and food technologies, bioprocessing, and novel food production concepts for resilient and sustainable food systems. In recent years, her work has focused on using biotechnology for food ingredient production and alternative proteins, for which she received the Research Council of Finland Award in 2024.

Mohammad Taherzadeh

Professor in Bioprocess Technology, Chief Scientific Officer (CSO), Millow

Mohammad is a chemical engineer and bioscientist focused on accelerating the circular economy through biorefineries, using biological systems to convert renewable and residual carbon into value-added products such as fuels, materials, food, and feed.

Sheila Ingemann Jensen

Senior researcher/Groupleader at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Biotechnology Research Institute for the Green Transition, DTU

Sheila’s group work on enabling the development of Sustainable microbial solutions. Currently the two main research areas in the group are the development of efficient broad-host range and species-specific molecular tools for a variety of established and non-traditional bacteria, and the use of these tools to develop efficient cell factories for the production of bulk-chemicals from sustainable resources.

Elena (Ellie) Walden

Senior Regional Manager for the Nordics, Good Food Institute Europe

Ellies background includes political and NGO roles in London, Paris and Brussels, including as a Policy Advisor on environment and food topics in the European Parliament. Now based in Stockholm, she oversees the development of new analysis about the role and potential of alternative proteins and she engages with Nordic policymakers to advance these new foods as part of a holistic shift to a better European food system.

David Hunt

Senior Research Community Manager, Good Food Institute Europe

David leads the scientific community-building function in the GFI Europe science and technology team. His work involves collaborating with scientists, universities, companies, and other partners to foster a thriving alternative protein research ecosystem across the region. He holds a PhD in plant biotechnology from University College Dublin and has a background in academic community-building, managing scientific research programmes, and technology transfer. He is co-author of GFI Europe’s State of the European alternative protein research ecosystem series.