Gain of Function according to the NIH definition:
In 2014, the U.S. government put a pause on new funding of gain-of-function research, which it defined this way: “With an ultimate goal of better understanding disease pathways, gain-of-function studies aim to increase the ability of infectious agents to cause disease by enhancing its pathogenicity or by increasing its transmissibility.” A 2016 paper on the ethics of gain-of-function research said: “The ultimate objective of such research is to better inform public health and preparedness efforts and/or development of medical countermeasures.”
The pause — intended to provide time to address concerns about the risks and benefits of these studies — applied to certain research on influenza, MERS and SARS.
“Specifically, the funding pause will apply to gain-of-function research projects 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,” the White House said in an Oct. 17, 2014, announcement.
As a Nature article at the time explained, there had been fierce debate among scientists on exactly what research should be deemed too risky. And some confusion on where the line would be drawn for this pause.
“Viruses are always mutating,” the article said, “and [Arturo] Casadevall [then a microbiologist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City], says that it is difficult to determine how much mutation deliberately created by scientists might be ‘reasonably anticipated’ to make a virus more dangerous — the point at which the White House states research must stop.”
The Wuhan Lab and the Gain-of-Function Disagreement - FactCheck.org
A disagreement between Republican Sen. Rand Paul and Dr. Anthony Fauci has put $600,000 of U.S. grant money to the Wuhan Institute of Virology back into the spotlight, while making "gain-of-function" research a household term -- all amid calls for more investigation into the origins of SARS-CoV-2.www.factcheck.org
Wwwwhhhhhich is exactly what they were doing.