Get started. I called this meeting of the Senate Homeland security and Government Affairs subcommittee on emerging threats and spending oversight to order. I want to thank senator hassan for allowing this bipartisan hearing to occur. Welcome to each of our panelists. Thank you for joining us. The purpose of this hearing by the subcommittee on emerging threats and spending oversight is to discuss, as our name implies, the emerging threat posed by gain of function research. We will hear from a panel of three witnesses, all of whom are extraordinarily accomplished experts in the Scientific Community. We are grateful for that work, and we are grateful to each of you for taking the time to appear here with us this afternoon. Gain of function research is a controversial Scientific Research method involving the manipulation of pathogens to give them a new aspect or ability, such as making viruses more transmissible or dangerous to humans. Despite all we have learnedre about the potential risk