The federal government has lifted a 3-year-old moratorium on funding research that modifies pathogens to make them more deadly.
Critics of the moratorium have argued the research could show how a virus, like influenza, could mutate, and more easily be transmitted to humans.
But supporters of the ban, like my next guest, worry about these more lethal pathogens leaving the lab and infecting lots and lots of people.
Richard Ebright is a professor of chemistry and chemical biology, and laboratory director at the Waxman Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers University in New Jersey.
