The gain-of-function research that was conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China was intended to engineer highly contagious viruses "to learn about treatments and vaccines" to understand how to respond to an actual outbreak. The team that made this research possible was America's very own public health experts at the NIAID, led by none other than Dr. Anthony Fauci, the number one expert in infectious diseases and leader of the federal coronavirus task force.
Fauci continued gain of function coronavirus research by secretly subcontracting it

The original gain-of-function research goes back ten years, with a Netherlands study that involved ferrets. The researchers wanted to see if coronaviruses could be genetically manipulated so they could be transferred through the air.