The revival of the "lab leak" theory of COVID-19 — that it started with a virus that originated in a laboratory — is drawing new attenti

The two-sided risks of lab-enhanced viruses

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2021-05-23 16:00:04

The revival of the "lab leak" theory of COVID-19 — that it started with a virus that originated in a laboratory — is drawing new attention to the dangers of scientific experiments that enhance pathogens to study them.

Why it matters: So-called "gain-of-function" research can be invaluable in predicting future pandemic threats, but it can also generate risks by introducing new, potentially more dangerous viruses.

Driving the news: Last week, a group of leading researchers called for a renewed investigation into the origins of COVID-19 in a letter published in the journal Science.

The backstory: Concerns around gain-of-function research, prompted by work with the H5N1 avian flu virus, led the National Institutes of Health to put a funding pause in 2014 on such studies involving dangerous viruses like flu or SARS. The pause was lifted three years later after the creation of an oversight framework.

Like all low-probability/high-consequence events, hard data on both the true risks and benefits of gain-of-function research is hard to come by, which makes it difficult to estimate the scale of the threat.