Gain-of-function research on infectious diseases, long controversial within the scientific community, has become a political target since the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., if confirmed as the next health secretary, may seek to ban it — a move that could have sweeping consequences for scientific development in America by prohibiting experiments that help scientists understand how infectious diseases work but could make them more harmful to humans if they were to leak from a lab.
Richard Ebright, a professor of microbiology at Rutgers University, told NOTUS he spoke with Kennedy at length about a potential ban on gain-of-function research earlier this year.