Previous expectations had been (at least, according to the paper; I haven’t checked that they aren’t lying) that viruses like the one they made should not be able to infect humans. They found evidence that it might be possible after all, so maybe it ended up being research that produced gain of function, but I think “gain of function research” is usually taken to mean research intended or at least expected to produce gain of function.
Their modified virus (SHC014-MA15), if I’m understanding right, was a sort of combination of an existing SARS virus adapted to be more suitable for infecting mice rather than humans (SARS-MA15) and an existing bat coronavirus (SHC014-CoV). The modified virus was less harmful to mice than the pre-existing SARS-MA15, not more.
They explicitly discuss GoF concerns and say (I paraphrase) “what we did isn’t technically GoF research, but in view of what we found it seems like we should consider not doing this stuff in future”.
It’s certainly “GoF-adjacent” research at least, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that (1) it’s not exactly GoF research and (2) it doesn’t fall into the categories forbidden by US policy from 2014 to 2017. (The moratorium was on research “that may be reasonably anticipated to confer attributes to influenza, MERS, or SARS viruses such that the virus would have enhanced pathogenicity and/or transmissibility in mammals via the respiratory route”. This research did modify a SARS virus, namely SARS-MA15, but in a way that wasn’t expected to make it more harmful or more transmissible in mammals via the respiratory route; it in fact seems to have made the virus less harmful to the animals it’s best suited to, namely mice, but it turned out that it did make it more able to infect humans. I guess a lot turns on what counts as “reasonably anticipated”.)
Some relevant things in the paper:
Previous expectations had been (at least, according to the paper; I haven’t checked that they aren’t lying) that viruses like the one they made should not be able to infect humans. They found evidence that it might be possible after all, so maybe it ended up being research that produced gain of function, but I think “gain of function research” is usually taken to mean research intended or at least expected to produce gain of function.
Their modified virus (SHC014-MA15), if I’m understanding right, was a sort of combination of an existing SARS virus adapted to be more suitable for infecting mice rather than humans (SARS-MA15) and an existing bat coronavirus (SHC014-CoV). The modified virus was less harmful to mice than the pre-existing SARS-MA15, not more.
They explicitly discuss GoF concerns and say (I paraphrase) “what we did isn’t technically GoF research, but in view of what we found it seems like we should consider not doing this stuff in future”.
It’s certainly “GoF-adjacent” research at least, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that (1) it’s not exactly GoF research and (2) it doesn’t fall into the categories forbidden by US policy from 2014 to 2017. (The moratorium was on research “that may be reasonably anticipated to confer attributes to influenza, MERS, or SARS viruses such that the virus would have enhanced pathogenicity and/or transmissibility in mammals via the respiratory route”. This research did modify a SARS virus, namely SARS-MA15, but in a way that wasn’t expected to make it more harmful or more transmissible in mammals via the respiratory route; it in fact seems to have made the virus less harmful to the animals it’s best suited to, namely mice, but it turned out that it did make it more able to infect humans. I guess a lot turns on what counts as “reasonably anticipated”.)
[I am neither a biologist nor a lawyer.]