The U.S. government on Tuesday lifted a 2014 temporary ban on funding research involving the flu and other pathogens in which scientists deliberately make them more transmissible or more deadly.
The ban covered federal funding for any new "gain-of-function" experiments that enhance pathogens such as Avian influenza, SARS and the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS, viruses.
It followed a series of safety breaches at federal laboratories involving the handling of anthrax and avian flu that raised questions about lab safety at high-security national laboratories.