In 2014, after a series of accidents involving mishandled pathogens at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the NIH announced that it would stop funding gain-of-function research into certain viruses — including influenza, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) — that have the potential to unleash a pandemic or epidemic if they escaped from the lab...
...The government reversed course in January 2017 after the NSABB concluded that very few such experiments posed a risk to public safety. The NIH lifted its ban on funding gain-of-function research in December 2017,
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00210-5
Thanks for this!