NIH Removes Language on ‘Gain-of-Function’ From Website Amid Criticism Over Funding Chinese Research

Then-National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins stands in Bethesda, Md., on Jan. 26, 2021. Collins stepped down in December 2021. Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) altered a key portion of its website last week around the time it disclosed to Congress that experiments it funded in China met the definition of gain-of-function.

The federal agency had a detailed explanation of gain-of-function research on its site, noting that the term refers to any research “that modifies a biological agent so that it confers new or enhanced activity to that agent.”