Boston University

and gain-of-function controversy ====
In October 2022, Boston University's National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories conducted research in a Biosafety Level 3 lab that modified the original strain of the virus that causes COVID-19 with the spike proteins of the Omicron variant. This resulted in a virus that was more lethal to lab mice than the Omicron variant itself, but less lethal than the original strain. Some medical authorities criticized the research as dangerous "gain of function" research, but others argued that it did not technically count as gain of function research because the modified virus happened not to be quite as lethal as the original strain. Marc Lipsitch of Harvard, however, argued "these are unquestionably gain-of-function experiments. As many have noted, this is a very broad term encompassing many harmless and some potentially dangerous experiments. GOF is a scientific technique, not an epithet." While the BU researchers gained internal research and Boston government approvals …