Risky virus experiments that scientists think could have started the COVID-19 pandemic were initially solicited from a research arm of the Department of War, according to congressional testimony from a top United States virologist who has been near the center of inquiries into the origins of the pandemic.
Dr. Ralph Baric, a leading coronavirus researcher, told the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee during a closed-door interview this April that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency solicited proposals for gain-of-function experiments in January 2018. Gain-of-function research, which involves manipulating pathogens so they are either more easily transmissible or more deadly, has been at the heart of the debate over the origins of COVID-19 since early in 2020.
