{"id":6347,"date":"2023-05-26T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-26T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/?p=6347"},"modified":"2023-05-12T19:01:31","modified_gmt":"2023-05-12T19:01:31","slug":"gain-of-function-research-is-more-than-just-tweaking-risky-viruses-its-a-routine-and-essential-tool-in-all-biology-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/gain-of-function-research-is-more-than-just-tweaking-risky-viruses-its-a-routine-and-essential-tool-in-all-biology-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Gain-of-function research is more than just tweaking risky viruses \u2013 it\u2019s a routine and essential tool in all biology research"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Gain-of-function experiments in the lab can help researchers get ahead of viruses naturally gaining the ability to infect people in the wild.\n KTSDesign\/Science Photo Library via Getty Images<\/a><\/span>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n\nSeema Lakdawala<\/a>, University of Pittsburgh<\/a><\/em> and Anice Lowen<\/a>, Emory University<\/a><\/em><\/span>\n\n

The term \u201cgain of function\u201d is often taken to refer to research with viruses that puts society at risk of an infectious disease outbreak for questionable gain. Some research on emerging viruses can result in variants that gain the ability to infect people but this does not necessarily mean the research is dangerous or that it is not fruitful. Concerns have focused on lab research on the virus that causes bird flu<\/a> in 2012 and on the virus that causes COVID-19<\/a> since 2020. The National Institutes of Health had previously implemented a three-year moratorium<\/a> on gain-of-function research on certain viruses, and some U.S. legislatures have proposed bills prohibiting<\/a> gain-of-function research on \u201cpotentially pandemic pathogens.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

The possibility that a genetically modified virus could escape the lab needs to be taken seriously. But it does not mean that gain-of-function experiments are inherently risky or the purview of mad scientists. In fact, gain-of-function approaches are a fundamental tool in biology used to study much more than just viruses, contributing to many, if not most, modern discoveries in the field, including penicillin<\/a>, cancer immunotherapies<\/a> and drought-resistant crops<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

As scientists who<\/a> study viruses<\/a>, we believe that misunderstanding the term \u201cgain of function\u201d as something nefarious comes at the cost of progress in human health, ecological sustainability and technological advancement. Clarifying what gain-of-function research really is can help clarify why it is an essential scientific tool.<\/p>\n\n

What is gain of function?<\/h2>\n\n

To study how a living thing operates, scientists can change a specific part of it and then observe the effects. These changes sometimes result in the organism\u2019s gaining a function it didn\u2019t have before or losing a function it once had. <\/p>\n\n

For example, if the goal is to enhance the tumor-killing ability of immune cells, researchers can take a sample of a person\u2019s immune cells and modify them to express a protein that specifically targets cancer cells. This mutated immune cell, called a CAR-T cell<\/a> thereby \u201cgains the function\u201d of being able to bind to cancerous cells and kill them. The advance of similar immunotherapies that help the immune system attack cancer cells is based on the exploratory research of scientists who synthesized such \u201cFrankenstein\u201d proteins<\/a> in the 1980s. At that time, there was no way to know how useful these chimeric proteins would be to cancer treatment today, some 40 years later. <\/p>\n\n

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