President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday afternoon to halt federal funding for risky virus research that Republicans argue may have been the cause of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The order aims to stop scientists from conducting “gain-of-function” research with federal funding. It will end funding for such research by scientists in countries considered adversaries, such as China and Iran, and pause it in the United States until better safeguards are in place.
BREAKING: @POTUS just signed an executive order protecting Americans from dangerous gain-of-function research.
The order:
— Ends any present and all future Federal funding of dangerous gain-of-function research in countries of concern like China and Iran and in foreign… pic.twitter.com/4Cn7iQ4i3L
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) May 5, 2025
“This is a historic day,” National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said at the signing. “The conduct of this gain-of-function research, which aims at taking pathogens and making them more virulent, more transmissible in humans, many scientists believe, is responsible for the COVID pandemic.”
The term “gain-of-function” has been subject to intense scientific debate long before becoming a household term during the height of the pandemic. Colloquially, it refers to genetically engineering a virus or other pathogen to make it more contagious or lethal.
Republicans have speculated since the beginning of the pandemic that SARS-CoV-2 originated from research projects on bat coronaviruses funded by the National Institutes of Health and conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.
In April, the White House launched a new website blaming U.S.-funded research for the start of the pandemic. NIH funding was also slated for a 40% cut in Trump’s non-binding proposed budget sent to Congress last week, which cited the agency’s inability to entirely rule out that its funds contributed to research in China that may have started the pandemic.
Many virologists, epidemiologists, and other health researchers support gain-of-function research as a necessary tool to prepare for future pandemics with viruses that are not yet in circulation.
Experts at the intersection of public health and ecology argue that humans are increasingly at risk of contracting unknown viruses as we continue encroaching on previously undisturbed animal habitats. They say that gain-of-function and other potentially dangerous research techniques are vital to being prepared to prevent another, even deadlier, pandemic.
Calls to rein in gain-of-function research intensified within the scientific community in 2011 when two research teams published that they had genetically engineered versions of the H5N1 influenza virus that could spread between ferrets. Many scientists grew concerned that a potent new lab strain could be accidentally or deliberately released from a lab and spark a pandemic.
Shortly thereafter, former President Barack Obama in 2014 placed a moratorium on gain-of-function research using viruses with pandemic potential, including influenza, SARS, and MERS.
The moratorium was lifted in December 2017 following the development of a framework to guide decisions about federal funding for this type of research. The Obama administration also established the Potential Pandemic Pathogen Care and Oversight Committee as part of the new framework to review gain-of-function research.
The Trump order is expected to mandate a new policy governing risky research in the U.S. to be developed by the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the national security adviser. That policy is meant to differ from past regulations by including enforcement and reporting mechanisms.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who has been at the forefront of political debates on gain-of-function since 2020, told the Washington Examiner in December that he intends to use his chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security Committee to investigate why the P3CO Committee did not oversee NIH-funded research on bat coronaviruses conducted in China.
This session, Paul also introduced the Risky Research Review Act, which Bhattacharya supported.
The bill would create a Life Sciences Research Security Board to provide what Paul has characterized as “an extra layer of protection” to determine that project plans meet minimum biosafety controls before receiving federal funding. The board would be a nine-member panel, appointed by the president and subject to Senate confirmation.
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The bill advanced out of the Senate homeland security committee last year, and Paul reintroduced it this year.
In December, Paul told the Washington Examiner that he anticipated the incoming Trump administration would support many of his bill’s details even if it did not pass.
White House reporter Naomi Lim contributed to this report.