Read our related editorial: US stem-cell debate is far from over
PRESIDENT Barack Obama couldn鈥檛 have picked a better moment to lift George Bush鈥檚 restrictions on the federal funding of research on human embryonic stem cells (ESCs).
The move comes as the (NIH), the financial engine behind much US biomedical research, prepares for an unprecedented windfall of as part of the Obama administration鈥檚 鈥渆conomic stimulus鈥� package. While most of this money will fund grant proposals that have already been submitted, some will go to new projects, which can now include a broad range of ESC research.
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翱产补尘补鈥檚 , signed on 9 March, gives the NIH 120 days to draw up new guidelines for research on human ESCs. These should free US biologists to work on a wide range of cells. Federally funded biologists have had to make do with a small number of old cell lines since 9 August 2001, when President George Bush limited federal funding to cells isolated before this date.
Biologists are also celebrating the end of an administrative nightmare. Under Bush鈥檚 policy, some had to set up separate lab space and equipment to ensure that federal dollars were not inadvertently used for research on non-authorised cells.
鈥淭he press has just been here taking pictures of us ripping stickers off our incubators,鈥� Evan Snyder of the in La Jolla, California, told 麻豆传媒, minutes after Obama signed the order.
Read our related editorial: US stem-cell debate is far from over