TEEN ENGINEERS TOMATOES MEANT TO TASTE LIKE A HAMBURGER

A 17-year-old scientist is developing genetically engineered tomatoes meant to taste like a hamburger.

Gabriella Rothberg is pursuing the idea through a project called Impossible Vines, which drew fresh coverage on October 15, 2026. The goal is to get tomato plants to produce heme, an iron-containing molecule associated with meat flavor.

“You’ll bite into a tomato, and it’ll taste like a hamburger,” Rothberg told Miami New Times.

The method involves using Agrobacterium to introduce genetic material into tomato plants. She is working on it with Maddison Marshall, a University of Miami PhD candidate.

A U.S. patent issued in June 2026 lists Rothberg and her father, Jonathan Rothberg, as inventors. Impossible Vines Inc. is the assignee.

Rothberg told Miami New Times she used AI to help create a business plan and draft a patent.

Yahoo Tech reported that her father is a scientist who received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation in 2013 for next-generation DNA sequencing technology, and that her mother is a physician and cancer researcher.

Rothberg said the tomatoes could improve access to nutrients where meat is less available, with pregnant women in countries in the Global South among those who could benefit, People reported.

The impact, she said, depends on whether the tomatoes can contain enough absorbable iron.

Impossible Foods uses heme in its plant-based meat products. Rothberg may also explore increasing the tomatoes’ natural lycopene, which has been investigated for potential cancer-risk reduction, though that benefit is not proven.

On October 12, 2026, Rothberg posted that a tomato plant that began as a tissue-cultured explant in June 2026 had become an established plant. “From a tiny leaf on a petri dish, we grew stem cells, shoots, and finally roots,” she wrote. “The plantlet we then transplanted into soil, slowly acclimating it to ambient humidity until it became an established plant.”