A decade ago, scientists funded by the National Institutes of Health used ferrets to engineer a highly lethal flu virus. The purpose of the research — known as “gain of function” — was to better ...

FOUR years ago a series of essays under the title “The Frustration of Science”, to which Prof. J. D. Bernal himself contributed one on “Science and Industry”, bore witness to the sense of social ...

Talk of “gain-of-function” research, a muddy category at best, brings up deep questions about how scientists should study viruses and other pathogens. By Carl Zimmer and James Gorman At a Senate ...