Seventy-seven US Nobel laureates have urged the US government to launch an investigation into a decision by the National Institutes of Health, or NIH, to cancel a grant for a study into how the novel coronavirus moves from animals to humans.

The grant in question was awarded to disease ecologist Peter Daszak, who leads EcoHealth Alliance, a New York-based international nonprofit devoted to the study of emerging infectious diseases

"We believe that this action sets a dangerous precedent by interfering in the conduct of science and jeopardizes public trust in the process of awarding federal funds for research," the laureates said in an open letter that was released on Thursday. The action unites pre-eminent scientists in medicine, chemistry and physics.

The grant in question was awarded to disease ecologist Peter Daszak, who leads EcoHealth Alliance, a New York-based international nonprofit devoted to the study of emerging infectious diseases.

For many years, the group has been a key collaborator with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which became the focal point of a conspiracy theory pushed by some in the Trump administration that claims the coronavirus was accidentally released by the lab, causing the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite the misrepresentation of Daszak's grant and the high relevance of his study to the pandemic, the NIH informed Daszak and his colleagues that the grant was being terminated because the "NIH does not believe that the current project outcomes align with the program goals and agency priorities".

The scientists' letter countered that such explanations are "preposterous" under the circumstances.

The open letter, which was addressed to Alex Azar, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, and NIH head Francis Collins, also highlighted the importance of international collaboration in scientific research, including Daszak's work.

In a statement posted on its website, EcoHealth Alliance said the research terminated by the NIH helped in designing vaccines and drugs to protect people from COVID-19 and other coronavirus threats.

Gerald Keusch, a former director of NIH's Fogarty International Center, told the journal Science that the NIH's move is counterproductive to the understanding of the current pandemic and avoiding future viral outbreaks.

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The laureates' letter came just a day after the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, or ASBMB, one of the largest molecular life science societies in the world, published a similar letter of protest directed to the NIH.

Decision linked to rumors

In the letter, the ASBMB, which represents "tens of thousands of members of the American biomedical research enterprise", said the decision by the NIH politicizes science and seems to be a reaction to a theory about the origins of the COVID-19 virus, which the US intelligence community has publicly repudiated.

"EcoHealth Alliance at one point collaborated with a lab in Wuhan, China, which has recently been at the center of rumors about the origin of the pandemic," the letter said. "The overall goal of EcoHealth Alliance's research project is to study coronavirus transmission from species to species. But the purpose of the research project has been conflated with these rumors. This is worrisome.

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"International collaboration has propelled the American research enterprise to achieve vital innovations and discoveries; it is the gold standard for the scientific community. The United States is a beacon for the best and brightest minds, consistently attracting top scientists from around the world. However, with this incident, international collaboration is being portrayed as a threat."

teresaliu@chinadailyusa.com