Marc Lipsitch Harvard Epidemiologist on COVID-19 and the dubious art of "gain-of-function" research

Marc Lipsitch is an American epidemiologist and Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He is also the Director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics. He is currently working on modeling the transmission of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Lipsitch attended Yale University, where he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy in 1991. He attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, studying zoology, and received his Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1995. There, he studied under Robert May and Martin Nowak. He then returned to the United States for his postdoctoral fellowship at Emory University from 1995 to 1999. During that time, he worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before joining the faculty at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. LYRICS: The Terrible Tale of Gain-of-Function Research Under the Streetlight I was reading in the Lancet just the other day About the risk and benefits of gain-of-function How some thought it desirous Give functions to a virus       Of virulence and transmissibility Thereby enabling assessment to inform investment In preparedness plans for pandemics But what was the cause of the funding pause? Human error in high containment labs Gain-of-function Strange instructions Vague assumptions Gain-of-function We can't even predict How influenza hits From one season to the next Instead of understanding these And improving the vaccines They look for answers where the looking's good Testing out the 'ifs' And sequencing the 'whats' Like, how about if this virus was airborne Cos if we know, how transmission goes We're better prepared to prevent it Gain-of-function Insane construction Plain dysfunction Gain-of-function From ferret, to ferret Really is there merit? Research it, regret it Disaster you'll inherit From mammal to mammal It's utterly disparate Don't get it? Don't sweat it? It'll kill if you let "Why are you looking under the streetlight? Do you think the answer's over there" The searcher answered with a spurious riposte                                                  "No, but the light is brighter over here" Gain-of-function Insane construction Plain dysfunction Gain-of-function Strange instructions Vague assumptions Gain-of-function