Notice Announcing the Removal of the Funding Pause for Gain-of-Function Research Projects

This brief notice announced to researchers and the public that the funding moratorium on gain-of-function research instituted in 2014 would be lifted. This announcement came after the U.S. Government conducted a risk/benefit analysis on such research. Based on this analysis, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) established a new framework for the review of dual-use gain-of-function research with potential pandemic pathogens (PPPs). In effect, the U.S. Government utilized a risk management framing of gain-of-function research to justify ending the moratorium, demonstrating one way in which a highly technical form of knowledge has shaped public policy governing morally or ethically fraught research.