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Liz Specht

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Elizabeth Anne Specht
Alma materUniversity of California, San Diego
Johns Hopkins University
Scientific career
InstitutionsThe Good Food Institute
University of Colorado Boulder
ThesisImproving the genetic tractability of the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (2014)

Elizabeth Anne Specht is an American research scientist who is Vice President for Science and Technology at The Good Food Institute. She leads the development of a roadmap for the acceleration of alternative protein research. In 2022, Vox named her in one of their "Future Perfect 50".

Early life and education

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Specht became vegetarian during college.[1] She studied chemical and bimolecular engineering at Johns Hopkins University.[2] When she joined Johns Hopkins, she thought she wanted to pursue a career in pharmaceutical science, but her experiences during her undergraduate changed her perspective.[2] During her summer holidays she worked in India on an Engineers Without Borders program, where she became motivated to design solutions to help with food production and distribution.[2] She moved to the University of California, San Diego for her doctoral research, where she studied the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.[3][4] She was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she focused on synthetic biology in the Boulder Sustainability Innovation Lab.[5] In Colorado, she developed biosensors for disease diagnostics.[4] Her experiences in research made her consider the role of synthetic biology in helping to address the climate impacts of animal agriculture.[citation needed]

Career

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In 2016, Specht joined The Good Food Institute, where she looks to identify and develop alternative proteins.[6] On leaving academia to work in a non-profit, Spect said, “For much of my scientific career, I felt like the hallowed halls of academia didn’t shine quite as brightly on folks like me who are explicitly motivated to find the ‘low-hanging fruit’ — opportunities for relatively straightforward technology to make a massive impact in the world,”.[7] At The Good Food Institute, Specht helps investors understand new technologies, generating capital which can aid research and innovation.[1][8] She believes that such investment can help to strengthen the sustainability and resilience of food systems.[1][9][10]

Specht is responsible for the distribution of funding to develop new sources of plant protein, identify new cell lines for optimized cultivated meat and create steak-like cuts of plant based meat.[11] Seaweed and algae represent one type of alternative protein, which could provide and effective means to feed the world's growing population. In an interview with National Geographic, Specht explained that it was possible to grow microalgae at scale, using bioreactors and LEDs.[12] When lab-grown meat received clearance from the Food and Drug Administration in 2022, Specht explained that it meant that focus could be shifted to “what really matters in this industry, which is scale up,”.[13][14]

Vox named Specht in their 2022 Future Perfect 50.[11]

Selected publications

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  • Elizabeth Specht; Shigeki Miyake-Stoner; Stephen Mayfield (17 June 2010). "Micro-algae come of age as a platform for recombinant protein production". Biotechnology Letters. 32 (10): 1373–1383. doi:10.1007/S10529-010-0326-5. ISSN 0141-5492. PMC 2941057. PMID 20556634. Wikidata Q34134908.
  • Elizabeth A Specht; Esther Braselmann; Amy E Palmer (16 November 2016). "A Critical and Comparative Review of Fluorescent Tools for Live-Cell Imaging". Annual Review of Physiology. 79: 93–117. doi:10.1146/ANNUREV-PHYSIOL-022516-034055. ISSN 0066-4278. PMID 27860833. Wikidata Q38793820.
  • Javier A Gimpel; Elizabeth A Specht; D Ryan Georgianna; Stephen P Mayfield (16 May 2013). "Advances in microalgae engineering and synthetic biology applications for biofuel production". Current Opinion in Chemical Biology. 17 (3): 489–495. doi:10.1016/J.CBPA.2013.03.038. ISSN 1367-5931. PMID 23684717. Wikidata Q38107702.

References

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  1. ^ a b c "Meet Dr. Liz Specht, GFI's associate director of science and technology team - The Good Food Institute". gfi.org. 2020-05-07. Retrieved 2023-01-12.
  2. ^ a b c "Meet your new meat: JHU grad a leader in promoting alternative proteins". Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Retrieved 2023-01-12.
  3. ^ "Improving the genetic tractability of the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii | WorldCat.org". www.worldcat.org. Retrieved 2023-01-12.
  4. ^ a b Beresford, Trilby (2016-11-30). "Meet Dr. Liz Specht: Senior Scientist at The Good Food Institute". Medium. Retrieved 2023-01-12.
  5. ^ Fukutaki, Claire (2018-06-16). "Liz Specht". SynBioBeta 2018. Retrieved 2023-01-12.
  6. ^ "The 3 pathways to alternative proteins". Canary Media. Retrieved 2023-01-12.
  7. ^ Stories_insci (2019-09-07). "Finally Found My Lowest-Hanging Fruit". Stories in Science. Retrieved 2023-01-12.
  8. ^ "Dr. Liz Specht - Experts - Singularity". www.su.org. Retrieved 2023-01-12.
  9. ^ Jackson, Lauren (2022-07-29). "The Future of Food". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-01-12.
  10. ^ Skerrett, Patrick (2020-03-10). "What does the coronavirus mean for the U.S. health care system? Some simple math offers alarming answers". STAT. Retrieved 2023-01-12.
  11. ^ a b Torrella, Kenny (2022-10-20). "Liz Specht is shaping the next generation of meat alternatives". Vox. Retrieved 2023-01-12.
  12. ^ @NatGeoUK (2022-11-09). "Is it time to start eating algae?". National Geographic. Retrieved 2023-01-12.
  13. ^ Toeniskoetter, Clare (2022-11-17). "Lab-Grown Meat Receives Clearance From F.D.A." The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-01-12.
  14. ^ Magazine, Smithsonian; Sullivan, Will. "Lab-Grown Meat Is Safe to Eat, FDA Says". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 2023-01-12.
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