By Brooke Singman | Fox News
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday banning all federal funding for “dangerous” gain-of-function research in China, Iran and other countries and blocking all federal funding for foreign research that could cause another pandemic.
The president signed the order Monday afternoon to improve the safety and security of biological research in the U.S. and around the world.
The White House said the order “will drastically reduce the potential for lab-related incidents involving gain-of-function research, like that conducted on bat coronaviruses in China by the EcoHealth Alliance and Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
Gain-of-function research typically involves modifying a virus to make it more infectious among humans. Gain of function research took place at the Wuhan Lab before the COVID-19 pandemic began.