From AI to alternative proteins: ChemEngDay26 in focus

Conference highlights innovation in climate tech and biotechnology, alongside growing concerns over careers, policy direction and global food security

HUNDREDS of chemical engineers from across the UK and Ireland descended on Birmingham in April for ChemEngDay26, a two-day showcase of the ideas and technologies shaping the future of the profession.

Now in its 26th year, ChemEngDay26 coincided with the University of Birmingham’s 125-year anniversary. Opening the event, Liam Grover, director of the university’s Healthcare Technologies Institute, reminded delegates that chemical engineering has been central to the University of Birmingham’s foundations in a city synonymous with manufacturing.

Staying true to this sentiment, the event focused on some of the profession’s most pressing challenges, including the impact of AI on jobs and technology, and innovation in climate tech and biotechnology. Hosted in the Teaching and Learning Building on the sprawling university campus, hundreds of students and academics gathered to present their research and receive feedback from their peers.

The conference began with a plenary lecture from Marianne Ellis, professor of tissue engineering at the University of Bath and director of the Cellular Agriculture Manufacturing Hub (CARMA), who spoke about her team’s latest work in cultivated meat.

Speaking to TCE, Ellis said her interest in cell-cultivated meat is driven less by emissions reduction and more by its potential to improve global food security. While the technology is often framed in the West as a way to cut agricultural emissions without changing diets, she argued it could instead provide “high-quality protein where not everybody has access to it”. Even in developed economies, she noted, climate change and geopolitical pressures are exposing vulnerabilities in food systems.

Food was a prominent theme for the event, with IChemE’s Food and Drink Special Interest Group hosting a poster competition. Charlotte Huddart, a chemical engineering PhD candidate at the University of Birmingham, won for her research around natural emulsifier alternatives for chocolate.

Ellis also highlighted the need to diversify food production methods. Crops such as coffee and cocoa are increasingly under pressure from climate change, strengthening the case for alternative approaches, including plant cell cultivation.

However, she cautioned against imposing solutions developed in the global north onto other regions. Her team’s early work looked at protein sources in a refugee camp in Kenya, where the main source of protein had previously based around peanuts, which are not suitable for everyone. Ellis looked at whether they could get a better source of protein from stem cells extracted from goats sacrificed by herders in the camp.

“We need to be really careful we don’t impose our ideas” of how food is produced, she said. “We can develop amazing technologies that we instinctively believe are going to be right and good”, but innovators should always ask themselves whether there could be unintended consequences from their work.