Trump Restricts Gain-of-Function Research to Prevent Future Pandemics

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday restricting gain-of-function research, which involves deliberately altering viruses and pathogens to enhance capabilities like transmissibility or harmfulness. 

While the goal of such research is to understand potential threats and develop countermeasures, the administration says it is concerned with its potential to cause another pandemic.

“Dangerous gain-of-function research on biological agents and pathogens has the potential to significantly endanger the lives of American citizens,” the order says. “If left unrestricted, its effects can include widespread mortality, an impaired public health system, disrupted American livelihoods, and diminished economic and national security.”

Advocates of gain-of-function research restrictions said the COVID-19 pandemic, which killed more than an estimated 15 million people globally, strengthened the rationale for a moratorium on such research. Scientists say it is likely that the deadly SARS-CoV-2 virus originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a prominent Chinese lab and the epicenter of gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses.

The executive order would block any U.S. funding of gain-of-function research in “countries of concern,” such as China and Iran, as well as other foreign nations “deemed to have insufficient research oversight.” Trump also moved to prohibit American funding from “contributing to foreign research likely to cause another pandemic.”

“My administration will balance the prevention of catastrophic consequences with maintaining readiness against biological threats and driving global leadership in biotechnology, biological countermeasures, biosecurity, and health research,” the order says.

The order is a variant of President Barack Obama’s 2014 funding moratorium on gain-of-function research.

According to the White House, the Biden administration allowed gain-of-function research without sufficient oversight. The Biden National Institutes of Health also approved federal life-science research funding in China and other countries where there is limited U.S. oversight.

“This recklessness, if unaddressed, may lead to the proliferation of research on pathogens (and potential pathogens) in settings without adequate safeguards, even after COVID-19 revealed the risk of such practices,” the order says.