Auditors from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Inspector-General (OIG) are probing whether National Institutes for Health (NIH) officials properly managed research grants that ended up partially funding controversial “gain-of-function” research by China’s Wuhan lab. “The OIG has previously identified NIH’s oversight of grants to foreign applicants as a potential risk to [HHS] meeting program goals and the appropriate use of federal funds,” the OIG said Tuesday in an update of its workplan. “NIH must manage and administer federal awards to ensure that federal funding is expended and associated programs are implemented in full accordance with statutory and public policy requirements. To do so, NIH must monitor grantee performance and grantee use of NIH funds,” the OIG said. “Grantees are responsible for complying with all requirements of the federal award, including maintaining effective internal controls over the federal award. “Grantees that function as pass-through entities must …