Gain-of-function experiments can help researchers get ahead of viruses naturally gaining the ability to infect people in the wild. But they're also used for many other areas of study within biology.

President Donald Trump is continuing to promote the unsupported “lab leak” COVID-19 theory, using it now to rationalize a new executive order designed to prohibit federal funding of certain research ...

In the wake of President Donald Trump's executive order on gain-of-function research, questions linger on exactly how the order will be implemented and about its potential impacts on the study of ...

In a party-line vote last evening, the U.S. Senate confirmed Stanford professor and medical researcher Jay Bhattacharya as director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The confirmation of ...

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) The term “gain of function” is often taken to refer to research with viruses that puts ...