President Donald Trump’s executive order issued Monday would end federal funding for gain-of-function (GoF) research. The EO, like so many others attacking science, contains false and misleading arguments. It is mere political theater, rather than a serious plan to strengthen our preparedness for the next pandemic.
The EO ends federal funding for GoF conducted by foreign entities in "countries of concern," without specifying the countries other than China. Notably, the EO defines “dangerous gain-of-function research” broadly, not limiting application of the order to pathogens with pandemic potential. It separately suspends funding for vaguely defined “other life-science research” determined to pose a threat to U.S. health, safety, or security. That means the administration could stop funding important research even if it doesn’t involve a gain of function. The order also instructs the Office of Science and Technology Policy to establish guidance suspending all federally funded GoF research within the U.S. and to oversee such research carried out without federal funds. The EO purports to target our adversaries like China, but it paints with a broad brush.
It is mere political theater, rather than a serious plan to strengthen our preparedness for the next pandemic.
So, what is GoF research, and what are its benefits and dangers? Truth be told, GoF is poorly defined, but broadly encompasses research that enhances an organism’s (like a pathogen’s) function. A subset of this research could make a pathogen more transmissible or pathogenic. Scientists employ GoF virology techniques to better understand the biology, ecology and pathogenesis of viruses. GoF experiments help scientists understand how quickly resistance or viral mutations develop. These experiments can be important for developing lifesaving vaccines and treatments, for example, helping researchers understand the evolution of coronaviruses.
It is important to stress that GoF research involving pathogens with pandemic potential raises vital biosafety and biosecurity concerns. We should worry that enhanced pathogens may leak from an unsecured lab or be used in a bioterrorism attack.
These concerns have led the National Institutes of Health to tighten biosafety controls and stringently regulate how, when and where GoF research can be conducted. NIH already employs multiple layers of review and oversight of GoF research. In 2014, the Obama administration paused funding for high-risk GoF studies involving SARS, MERS and novel influenza viruses. It was the first Trump administration that lifted the pause in 2017, initiating a rigorous evaluation process for research proposals using a Department of Health and Human Services-led risk-benefit analysis. The Biden administration further reinforced GoF safeguards, requiring researchers to submit a detailed risk-mitigation plan, a policy that came into force just this month.
Trump has taken aim at GoF research because he believes a laboratory leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology caused the Covid-19 pandemic. He attacks the NIH, and especially Dr. Anthony Fauci, for making a grant to the EcoHealth Alliance. On Jan. 17, HHS cut off all funding and formally debarred EcoHealth and its former president, Peter Daszak, for five years after a scathing partisan report from the GOP-led House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.
We may never know the true origins of Covid, and the lab leak theory remains a possibility.
Yet, most evidence still supports a natural zoonotic spillover, including SARS-CoV-2-positive environmental samples collected from Wuhan’s Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, epidemiologic linking to the market, and genetic analysis of two distinct viral lineages in early Covid-19 cases. On the other hand, there is no known progenitor strain to SARS-CoV-2 associated with the Wuhan laboratory.
Of course it’s important for the future of public health to understand as best we can what led to the pandemic. But that’s not what’s motivating Trump and his administration — rather, they seek to reopen old political battles and boost conspiracy theories.
Of course it’s important for the future of public health to understand as best we can what led to the pandemic. But that’s not what’s motivating the Trump administration.
Trump’s latest executive order is part of a series of steps that weaken federal health agencies, including a 40% funding cut to NIH and a 50% cut to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. NIH has proposed slashing indirect funding for all U.S. universities, a devastating blow to research. NIH announced it would end billions in funding for international research, imperiling global health research on infectious diseases. And we have not even mentioned the fact that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has undermined scientific advisory committees at NIH and CDC, put a vaccine skeptic in charge of a major study looking into vaccines and autism, and fomented distrust in vaccines.
What the president should do is focus on current and future steps to prepare us for the next pandemic: tighter biosecurity and biosafety protections in laboratories domestically and abroad, continued strong regulatory oversight of GoF research, investments in science and public health, full funding for NIH and CDC, and rejoining the World Health Organization.
The Trump administration seems determined to weaken U.S. preparedness for the next pandemic by eviscerating NIH and its ability to conduct and fund research into deadly pathogens together with its global partners. If we truly want to harden our defenses against pandemics, we need to stop relitigating the lab leak hypothesis, and jump-start research and innovation at the NIH and beyond.
GoF research will continue globally because it is important, and there is a lot we don’t know about how viruses evolve. But Trump has made it so that biomedical research will have lost a major collaborator in the U.S. Our scientists will now have fewer tools to detect, understand and fight viral disease.
CORRECTION (May 6, 2025, 7:39 p.m. ET): A previous version of this article incorrectly listed Iran as one of the "countries of concern" named in the executive order.