Inayat Batish and Thet Aung raise arms in front of the new Virginia Seafood AREC facility.
Department of Food Science and Technology students Inayat Batish (left) and Thet Aung (right) outside the new Virginia Seafood AREC facility in Hampton, Virginia. Photo by Keri Rouse for Virginia Tech.

Join us in congratulating two incredible scientists for completing their respective graduate programs.

Inayat Batish completed her Ph.D. defense "Developing Serum-free Media via Bioprocessing for Cultivated Seafood Products" in August. Inayat, a graduate student in the Department of Food Science and Technology, has worked with us at the Virginia Seafood AREC to research the use of machine learning and bioprocessing to create a serum-free alternative to the media traditionally used for cell culture in biomedical applications, which uses bovine serum harvested from animals and is as expensive as it is ethically dubious in its sourcing.

Thet Aung, also a graduate student in the Department of Food Science and Technology, defended her thesis "Developing Cultivated Mollusks Through Establishing Primary Cell Culture Methods of Eastern Oyster, Crassostrea virginica, as a Model Bivalve" in August. Her time at our research center included moves, discoveries, and many, many hours shucking oysters.

We can't wait to see what they apply themselves to achieve next!

Learn more about cellular agriculture and see Inayat and Thet at work with the Future Foods Lab program at the Virginia Seafood AREC.