Arizona Senators Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema should support increased funding for cultivated-meat research in order to prevent the next pandemic.

For those who aren’t familiar with the term, cultivated meat is grown from animal cells, without slaughter.

Since cultivated meat doesn’t require livestock, the risk of zoonotic diseases making the jump to humans is eliminated.

Unfortunately, cultivated meat still faces a number of technical hurdles which prevents its successful commercialization. These can be resolved with increased public money for cellular-agriculture development. Legislators who care about public health and want to avoid repeating the devastation of the last couple of years should support this.