Baric Transcribed Interview (Redacted) — page 95

DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com DR. BARIC: Well, at least that's the way the grant was written initially. Whether that would have functionally happened is a fair question, because if the Chinese discovered the virus, the question always exists whether they would share it with me to do that work or not. MS. SALAZAR: If you were on the proposal, you would have expected that they would? DR. BARIC: I would have, but I would also be uncertain that they would do that. MS. SALAZAR: And so you said that it would be -- this was gain-of-function. This proposal -- because this is the first time I'm hearing that -- because, I mean, PREEMPT, there were grants that were funded. So DEFUSE wasn't. But this is the first time I'm hearing that the actual call, the BAA was asking for -- DR. BARIC: It was asking to understand cross-species movement of viruses down to the nucleotide level. And my interpretation of that was gain-of-function, and they discuss gain-of-function. Now, I found it very interesting that the letter that they provided shortly thereafter said that the experiments were DURC. DURC is Dual-Use Research of Concern. involving 15 pathogens, none of which is a coronavirus. So I never saw that letter in the review. Now, Peter Daszak may have gotten that letter, but we were told the main reason the grant was rejected was that we