Lab leak hypothesis renews calls to restrict gain-of-function research

By Sarah Bedford

Published June 15, 2021 11:00am ET

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Lab leak hypothesis renews calls to restrict gain-of-function research — A woman wears a mask as an employee works to prevent a new coronavirus at Suseo Station in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Jan. 24, 2020. China broadened its unprecedented, open-ended lockdowns to encompass around 25 million people Friday to try to contain a deadly new virus that has sickened hundreds, though the measures' potential for success is uncertain. | (Ahn Young-joon/AP)

Renewed public interest in whether the pandemic started with a Chinese laboratory experiment gone wrong has also thrown a spotlight on a controversial form of research that some experts say may not be worth the risk.

Known popularly as the innocuous-sounding gain of function, these kinds of studies involve enhancing a virus to make it more infectious to understand how it spreads better.

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Anthony Fauci China COVID-19 NIH Wuhan Lab