Medford & Somerville, Mass. - Dec 10, 2025 - Tufts University, a leader in research and innovation at the intersection of science, engineering and food policy, will host its fourth annual Future of Food Innovation Day on January 8, 2026 at the Joyce Cummings Center in Medford, Mass.

This day-long event (formerly known as Cellular Agriculture Innovation Day) will showcase the latest scientific developments in the field of food sustainability, including the broad range of innovation and research currently taking place. A curated group of industry experts will explore how agriculture converges with biotech to advance food supply resilience, the role sustainable protein sources can play in broader abundance policies, and opportunities to create open access technology to bring better products to market, faster.

“We’re bringing together leaders in the sustainable food industry at a pivotal time when demand for animal-based proteins continues to grow and strain production, even as challenges to finding alternative sources have increased,” said David Kaplan, Stern Family Endowed Professor of Engineering in the School of Engineering at Tufts and director of the Tufts University Center for Cellular Agriculture (TUCCA). “Our fourth annual Innovation Day is the forum where the most crucial research and wide-ranging industry implications are discussed. The insights gained here are essential to preparing for the future of global food production.”

Tufts has positioned itself at the forefront of the food sustainability industry, serving as an academic epicenter of research and a convening body for crucial networking among industry leaders. This year, TUCCA partnered with nonprofit partner Good Food Institute to rescue the intellectual property of a shuttered start-up in the cultivated meat industry and make it publicly available to help nurture new growth in the field.

These assets—including cell lines—now are part of an open-access cell bank housed at Tufts, positioned alongside prototyping and scale-up research facilities for shared use, incubator laboratory space for co-located startups, and a network of experts dedicated to advancing cellular agriculture in Massachusetts and beyond. Together, this set of resources reflects a growing effort to establish a future foods innovation hub in Medford, Massachusetts. In 2021, the USDA selected Tufts as the home of the National Institute for Cellular Agriculture, further expanding the capabilities and support mechanisms within this rapidly evolving ecosystem.

The Future of Food Innovation Day will focus on how industry and academia can work together to meet the current moment for alternative proteins, especially in light of larger macroeconomic conditions. The meeting will also present developments within the Tufts innovation hub.

“Tufts is honored to serve as a leader in the important work of addressing the food system challenge through our academic research and by convening national industry leaders,” said Caroline Genco, Tufts University provost and senior vice president. “We are delighted to once again host this forum to discuss the next steps in building food sustainability.”

Tufts Future of Food Innovation Day features an impressive lineup of speakers, including:

• David Kaplan, Stern Family Endowed Professor of Engineering, director of the Tufts University Center for Cellular Agriculture
• Nicole Tichenor Blackstone, assistant professor in the Division of Agriculture, Food, and Environment at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University
• Bruce Friedrich, founder & president of the Good Food Institute
• Jan Dutkiewicz, author of forthcoming “Feed the People! Why Industrial Food Is Good and How to Make It Even Better”
• Dan Rejto, director of food & agriculture at the Breakthrough Institute
• Mike Grunwald, author of “We Are Eating the Earth: The Race to Fix Our Food System and Save Our Climate”
• Natalie Rubio, CEO, Deco Labs, and executive director of the Cellular Agriculture Commercialization Lab, Tufts University
• Andrew Stout, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, Tufts University
• Liz Specht, fellow at DARPA Biological Technologies Office
• Jon Bateman, senior fellow at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• Anna Marie Wagner, CEO at Transfyr
• Steven Lang, VP science and technology at California Cultured
• And many more.

“The future of food depends on our ability to successfully navigate a myriad of challenges, adapt to the political environment, and dramatically accelerate the translation of research into products for consumers,” said Natalie Rubio, entrepreneur-in-residence and executive director of the Cellular Agriculture Commercialization Lab, which is leading the banking and distribution of cells as part of its larger mission to commercialize promising technologies, and CEO of Deco Labs. “The Future Food Innovation Day will convene experts from academia, key companies, and investors—the essential triad of collaboration—to make that happen.”

The full event details can be found on the website here. This year’s event is invitation-only.