安东尼·福西博士在解释他对有争议的研究的支持时说，生物医学研究最终会保护公众健康。

安东尼·福西博士是唐纳德·特朗普总统的顾问，也是美国民间英雄，因为他在大流行危机期间表现出了稳定、冷静的领导能力。至少有一项民意调查显示美国人更加信任福西在冠状病毒大流行的问题上比特朗普更胜一筹——布拉德·皮特很少在电视上描绘科学家。

但就在去年，由福西博士领导的国家过敏和传染病研究所资助了武汉病毒学研究所和其他机构的科学家，对蝙蝠冠状病毒进行功能增益研究。

2019年，在NIAID的支持下，国家卫生研究院承诺在六年内投入370万美元用于包括一些功能增益工作在内的研究。该项目是继另一个价值370万美元、为期5年的收集和研究蝙蝠冠状病毒的项目之后实施的，该项目于2019年结束，使项目总额达到740万美元。

许多科学家批评了功能研究的成果，这涉及到在实验室中操纵病毒来探索它们感染人类的可能性，因为它造成了从意外释放开始大流行的风险。

传染性非典型肺炎-CoV-2是目前引起全球大流行的病毒，据信起源于蝙蝠。美国情报部门在最初宣称冠状病毒是自然发生的后，于上月承认大流行可能源于武汉实验室的泄漏。(在这一点上，大多数科学家认为大流行病毒有可能——但不太可能——是被设计或操纵的。)

Fauci博士没有回应新闻周刊征求意见。国家卫生研究院在一份声明中回应道:“大多数新出现的人类病毒来自野生动物，它们对美国和全球的公共健康和生物安全构成了重大威胁，2002-2003年的非典疫情和当前的COVID-19大流行就证明了这一点....科学研究表明，没有证据表明这种病毒是在实验室中制造的。”

国家卫生研究院的研究由两部分组成。这第一部分始于2014年，涉及蝙蝠冠状病毒的监测，预算为370万美元。该项目资助武汉实验室的病毒学家-李和其他研究人员对野生蝙蝠冠状病毒进行调查和分类。项目的这一部分于2019年完成。

A次相从那一年开始，该项目包括额外的监测工作，但也包括功能增益研究，目的是了解蝙蝠冠状病毒如何变异攻击人类。该项目由非营利研究团体生态健康联盟管理，由疾病生态学专家彼得·达扎克总统领导。就在刚刚过去的周五，4月24日，国家卫生研究院取消了这个项目。政客报道。达扎克没有立即回应新闻周刊征求意见。

该项目提案称:“我们将使用S蛋白序列数据、感染性克隆技术、体外和体内感染实验以及受体结合分析来检验S蛋白序列中的%差异阈值预测溢出可能性的假设。”

用门外汉的话来说，“溢出潜能”指的是病毒从动物跳到人类的能力，这要求病毒能够在人类细胞中受体。例如，SARS-CoV-2擅长与人肺和其他器官中的乙酰乙酸受体结合。

根据罗格斯大学传染病专家理查德·埃布莱特的说法，该项目描述是指利用基因工程技术来增强蝙蝠冠状病毒感染人类细胞和实验动物能力的实验。在大流行之后，这是一个值得注意的细节。

Ebright和许多其他科学家一样，一直是功能增益研究的公开反对者，因为它存在着通过实验室的意外释放造成大流行的风险。

福西博士因他在1990年代对艾滋病毒/艾滋病危机的研究而闻名。他出生在布鲁克林，1966年以全班第一名的成绩从康奈尔大学医学院毕业。自1984年以来，他一直是美国国际发展学院的院长，自罗纳德·里根以来，他一直是每一位美国总统的顾问。

十年前，在一场关于禽流感病毒功能获得研究的争论中，福西博士在推动这项工作中发挥了重要作用。他认为这项研究值得冒风险，因为它让科学家们能够做好准备，比如研究可能的抗病毒药物，这在大流行发生时可能是有用的。

正在讨论的工作是一种获得功能的研究，包括将野生病毒通过活的动物传播，直到它们变异成一种可能造成流行病威胁的形式。科学家们用它来将一种在人类中传播不良的病毒转化为一种高度可传播的病毒——这是大流行病毒的标志。这项工作是通过感染一系列雪貂来完成的，让病毒变异，直到一只没有被故意感染的雪貂感染了这种疾病。

这项工作带来的风险甚至让经验丰富的研究人员也感到担忧。200多名科学家呼吁停止这项工作。他们说，问题在于，这增加了实验室事故引发大流行的可能性。

Fauci博士为这项工作辩护。“[博士确定了这些病毒的分子致命弱点，这使得科学家能够确定新的抗病毒药物靶点，用于预防高危人群的感染，或更好地治疗那些被感染的人，”福西和两位合著者在《美国精神病学杂志》上写道华盛顿邮报2011年12月30日。“几十年的经验告诉我们，将通过生物医学研究获得的信息传播给合法的科学家和卫生官员，为制定适当的对策并最终保护公众健康提供了重要的基础。”

然而，在2014年，在奥巴马政府的压力下，美国国立卫生研究院暂停了这项工作，暂停了21项研究。

然而，三年后——2017年12月——国家卫生研究院终止了禁令，包括功能增益研究在内的NIAID项目第二阶段开始了。国家卫生研究院建立了一个框架来决定研究将如何进行:科学家必须得到专家小组的批准，他们将决定风险是否合理。

审查确实进行了——但是秘密进行的，为此国家卫生研究院招致了批评。2019年初，一名记者因科学杂志发现国家卫生研究院已经批准了两个使用功能增益方法的流感研究项目，反对这种研究的科学家在2005年的一篇社论中严厉批评了国家卫生研究院华盛顿邮报。

约翰·霍普金斯大学的汤姆·英格尔斯比和哈佛大学的马克·利普西奇写道:“我们对这些实验是否应该进行有严重的怀疑。”。“[，在秘密讨论的情况下，我们没有人有机会理解政府是如何做出这些决定的，也没有机会评判这个过程的严谨性和完整性。”

DR. FAUCI BACKED CONTROVERSIAL WUHAN LAB WITH MILLIONS OF U.S. DOLLARS FOR RISKY CORONAVIRUS RESEARCH

Biomedical research ultimately protects public health, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, in explaining his support for controversial research.

Dr. Anthony Fauci is an adviser to President Donald Trump and something of an American folk hero for his steady, calm leadership during the pandemic crisis. At least one poll shows that Americans trust Fauci more than Trump on the coronavirus pandemic—and few scientists are portrayed on TV by Brad Pitt.

But just last year, the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the organization led by Dr. Fauci, funded scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and other institutions for work on gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses.

In 2019, with the backing of NIAID, the National Institutes of Health committed $3.7 million over six years for research that included some gain-of-function work. The program followed another $3.7 million, 5-year project for collecting and studying bat coronaviruses, which ended in 2019, bringing the total to $7.4 million.

Many scientists have criticized gain of function research, which involves manipulating viruses in the lab to explore their potential for infecting humans, because it creates a risk of starting a pandemic from accidental release.

SARS-CoV-2 , the virus now causing a global pandemic, is believed to have originated in bats. U.S. intelligence, after originally asserting that the coronavirus had occurred naturally, conceded last month that the pandemic may have originated in a leak from the Wuhan lab. (At this point most scientists say it's possible—but not likely—that the pandemic virus was engineered or manipulated.)

Dr. Fauci did not respond to Newsweek's requests for comment. NIH responded with a statement that said in part: "Most emerging human viruses come from wildlife, and these represent a significant threat to public health and biosecurity in the US and globally, as demonstrated by the SARS epidemic of 2002-03, and the current COVID-19 pandemic.... scientific research indicates that there is no evidence that suggests the virus was created in a laboratory."

The NIH research consisted of two parts. The first part began in 2014 and involved surveillance of bat coronaviruses, and had a budget of $3.7 million. The program funded Shi Zheng-Li, a virologist at the Wuhan lab, and other researchers to investigate and catalogue bat coronaviruses in the wild. This part of the project was completed in 2019.

A second phase of the project, beginning that year, included additional surveillance work but also gain-of-function research for the purpose of understanding how bat coronaviruses could mutate to attack humans. The project was run by EcoHealth Alliance, a non-profit research group, under the direction of President Peter Daszak, an expert on disease ecology. NIH canceled the project just this past Friday, April 24th, Politico reported. Daszak did not immediately respond to Newsweekrequests for comment.

The project proposal states: "We will use S protein sequence data, infectious clone technology, in vitro and in vivo infection experiments and analysis of receptor binding to test the hypothesis that % divergence thresholds in S protein sequences predict spillover potential."

In layman's terms, "spillover potential" refers to the ability of a virus to jump from animals to humans, which requires that the virus be able to receptors in the cells of humans. SARS-CoV-2, for instance, is adept at binding to the ACE2 receptor in human lungs and other organs.

According to Richard Ebright, an infectious disease expert at Rutgers University, the project description refers to experiments that would enhance the ability of bat coronavirus to infect human cells and laboratory animals using techniques of genetic engineering. In the wake of the pandemic, that is a noteworthy detail.

Ebright, along with many other scientists, has been a vocal opponent of gain-of-function research because of the risk it presents of creating a pandemic through accidental release from a lab.

Dr. Fauci is renowned for his work on the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 1990s. Born in Brooklyn, he graduated first in his class from Cornell University Medical College in 1966. As head of NIAID since 1984, he has served as an adviser to every U.S. president since Ronald Reagan.

A decade ago, during a controversy over gain-of-function research on bird-flu viruses, Dr. Fauci played an important role in promoting the work. He argued that the research was worth the risk it entailed because it enables scientists to make preparations, such as investigating possible anti-viral medications, that could be useful if and when a pandemic occurred.

The work in question was a type of gain-of-function research that involved taking wild viruses and passing them through live animals until they mutate into a form that could pose a pandemic threat. Scientists used it to take a virus that was poorly transmitted among humans and make it into one that was highly transmissible—a hallmark of a pandemic virus. This work was done by infecting a series of ferrets, allowing the virus to mutate until a ferret that hadn't been deliberately infected contracted the disease.

The work entailed risks that worried even seasoned researchers. More than 200 scientists called for the work to be halted. The problem, they said, is that it increased the likelihood that a pandemic would occur through a laboratory accident.

Dr. Fauci defended the work. "[D]etermining the molecular Achilles' heel of these viruses can allow scientists to identify novel antiviral drug targets that could be used to prevent infection in those at risk or to better treat those who become infected," wrote Fauci and two co-authors in the Washington Post on December 30, 2011. "Decades of experience tells us that disseminating information gained through biomedical research to legitimate scientists and health officials provides a critical foundation for generating appropriate countermeasures and, ultimately, protecting the public health."

Nevertheless, in 2014, under pressure from the Obama administration, the National of Institutes of Health instituted a moratorium on the work, suspending 21 studies.

Three years later, though—in December 2017—the NIH ended the moratorium and the second phase of the NIAID project, which included the gain-of-function research, began. The NIH established a framework for determining how the research would go forward: scientists have to get approval from a panel of experts, who would decide whether the risks were justified.

The reviews were indeed conducted—but in secret, for which the NIH has drawn criticism. In early 2019, after a reporter for Science magazine discovered that the NIH had approved two influenza research projects that used gain of function methods, scientists who oppose this kind of research excoriated the NIH in an editorial in the Washington Post.

"We have serious doubts about whether these experiments should be conducted at all," wrote Tom Inglesby of Johns Hopkins University and Marc Lipsitch of Harvard. "[W]ith deliberations kept behind closed doors, none of us will have the opportunity to understand how the government arrived at these decisions or to judge the rigor and integrity of that process."