Research it was focused just on biopharma. Now we’ve started seeing it move toward ag tech, and even some food tech from the precision fermentation perspective. So the ecosystem continues to grow. We have about 30 companies right now that are interested in joining a consortium that we’re starting to put together, and that will be part of the ecosystem, too, which could operate in conjunction with the Bezos Center. If a company wants to fund research on a project that we have at the Bezos Center, Food Innovation Lab or any one of our other centers on campus, we can work our way toward research agree-ments from that perspective. Alt-Meat: There are three Bezos Centers worldwide, each of which has its focus so that they are comple-mentary to one another. Tell me how cooperation happens among the three labs across the planet. AIMUTIS: The specific focus of the Bezos Center at NC State will be biomanufacturing. Our focus is on im-proving the processes all the way from the lab bench, through the pilot plant, into full scale production. We have three pillars, beyond research and development. We’re also engaged in workforce development and identifying stakeholders. We are into some deep consumer science, and then we are also We want to be able to show that nutritional equivalency and food safety are of utmost concern. We work closely with the Good Food Institute, both from the NCFIL perspec-tive as well as the Bezos Center. So they are part of our ecosystem also. But the bigger picture here in North Carolina is Believer Meats building a major manufacturing facility for cultivated meat. Our biotechnology industry continues to grow in North Carolina, of course, and for a long time involved in policy and advocacy. As we look ahead, the university obviously can’t lobby legislators, but we certainly can educate their legislative aides and hopefully the people who are making the laws for the future. We have some goals there where we’ll write some white papers and single-page pieces to help inform the variety of stakeholders that we’re identifying. Stakeholders can be everything from farmers to agricultural commodity 32 Alt-Meat August 2025
Alt-Meat August 2025: Page 32
