Tom Collier
CEO and Co-Founder at Levur
Scientist-turned-entrepreneur, dedicated to replacing unsustainable plant and animal oils with innovative alternatives.
Through my academic journey at Macquarie University, I've honed my expertise in Synthetic Biology, specialising in high-throughput methods for yeast-based lipid production. I founded Levur to bring this technology to the world and currently serve as CEO alongside a small but brilliant team, both in and out of the lab. Levur harnesses the power of nature to produce sustainable replacements for environmentally damaging ingredients like palm oil.
Beyond research and building Levur, I'm actively involved in the Synthetic Biology community. I contribute to the Synthetic Biology Australasian (SBA) society and the Australian Synthetic Biology Challenge (ASBC), where I'm passionate about mentoring the next generation of researchers.
Key moments
Jump straight to the part of Brewing Palm Oil in a Lab: Tom Collier on the Future of Sustainable Ingredients with Levur you want.
- 0:24 Meet Tom Collier and Levur’s mission to brew palm oil
- 1:07 The devastating impact of palm oil production
- 2:05 Why global demand for palm oil is set to quadruple by 2050
- 3:12 How microbes and precision fermentation create sustainable palm oil
- 6:11 Why palm oil is used in everything from chocolate to shampoo
- 8:43 Scaling up: From lab samples to industrial fermentation
- 12:03 Overcoming biotech manufacturing bottlenecks
- 16:01 The challenge of making sustainable products cost-competitive
- 18:44 How waste feedstocks can power a circular economy
- 19:38 Why Europe’s palm oil regulations are a game-changer for Levur
Connections
Spot something wrong? Suggest a correction Updated 20 June 2026
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