- Virginia Tech researchers are working on a new means of getting seafood to your table: from a lab.
- “Overall we are trying to produce meat without killing animals,” said Reza Ovissipour, a food science assistant professor and lead of the university’s Future Foods Lab and Cellular Agriculture Initiative. “Because of many issues that we have, we need to find other alternative ways to produce meat. This is another way.”
- His team was one of six institutions recently awarded a $10 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture marking the agency’s first investment in the lab-grown meat field. Together, the consortium also plans to create a National Institute for Cellular Agriculture.
Congress must support alternative protein research
With China including cultivated meat in its latest five-year agricultural plan, the United States should make sure it isn’t left behind by investing heavily into cellular-agriculture development.
