NIH to Resume Funding Controversial 'Gain-of-Function' Research

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced yesterday that it would be removing a three-year funding pause on so-called "gain-of-function" research. The type of research in question involves engineering viruses to give them capabilities not found in nature in order to facilitate research. This can be as simple as producing a higher yield for a certain vaccine strain, but has also involved giving viruses potentially dangerous traits. One of the most popular examples of the potential