Dr. Steven Quay to Testify on Work in Gain-of-Function Research

Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli (L) is seen inside the P4 laboratory in Wuhan, capital of C
JOHANNES EISELE/AFP via Getty Images
Hannah Knudsen

Members of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Spending Oversight (ETSO) have asked Dr. Steven Quay to testify on his work in gain-of-function research on Wednesday, focusing on the origins of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.

Quay, the CEO of Atossa Therapeutics, is among those who have called for an internal investigation on the origins of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic. He will testify on the findings from his own research during Wednesday’s hearing. Richard H. Ebright, Ph.D., Laboratory Director at Waksman Institute of Microbiology, and Kevin M. Esvelt, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at MIT Media Lab, will also testify.

This will not be the first time Quay has testified before U.S. lawmakers on the origins of the pandemic. He spoke before the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis last year, telling lawmakers in his prepared opening remarks that he believes the evidence “conclusively establishes that the COVID pandemic was not a natural process but instead came from a laboratory in Wuhan China, and that it has the fingerprints of genetic manipulation through a process called ‘gain-of-function’ research.”

Brett Giroir, former Admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, testifies alongside Dr. Steven Quay during a Republican-led forum on the origins of the COVID-19 virus at the U.S. Capitol on June 29, 2021, in Washington, DC. The forum examined the theory that the coronavirus came from a lab in Wuhan, China. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

 “In the last 18 months, we have learned an immense amount about the origin of the pandemic. But one of my frustrations is that virologists and science writers around the world seem to want to ignore what we have learned and the inevitable conclusion it reveals,” his remarks read.

During a Fox Business Tonight appearance in October 2021, Quay added that the failing to understand the risks of gain-of-function research poses an “existential threat to life as we know it on this planet.”

The hearing comes roughly nine months after the National Institutes of Health (NIH) contradicted Dr. Anthony Fauci, affirming that it did fund gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab.

As Breitbart News reported, EcoHealth Alliance received the NIH grant, which was then sub-awarded to the Wuhan lab. It funded a project that tested “if spike proteins from naturally occurring bat coronaviruses circulating in China were capable of binding to the human ACE2 receptor in a mouse model.”

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has gone to war with Fauci over the White House medical adviser’s insistence that gain-of-function research did not occur. In fact, the senator went as far asserting that Fauci was willfully changing the definition of gain-of-function “to try to cover” his “ass.”

“You’re simply saying it doesn’t exist because you changed the definition on the NIH website. This is terrible and you’re completely trying to escape the idea that we should do something about trying to prevent a pandemic from leaking from a lab. And what you’ve done is change the definition on your website to try to cover your ass, basically,” Paul said at the time.

“That’s what you’ve done, you’ve changed the website to change the definition that doesn’t include the risky research that’s going on,” he added. “Until you admit that it’s risky, we’re not going to get anywhere.”

Senate HELP Committee

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