Munich

A cross-party parliamentary commission on bioethics has cast a majority vote against research involving any human embryonic stem (ES) cells in Germany.

The 12 November vote, which came out 17 to 7, will be taken into consideration next January, when the German parliament debates whether to close a legal loophole allowing human ES cells to be imported. In Germany, isolating the cells from human embryos is forbidden.

The situation puts more pressure on the DFG, Germany's main research granting agency, which has twice delayed a decision to release money for a research project on imported human ES cells. The agency approved the project in principle in May (see Nature 411, 875; 2001).

The DFG had hoped that the parliament would have debated the issue before the agency's main committee meeting on 7 December, at which the project was scheduled to be discussed. But events in the United States and Afghanistan have forced ES cells down the political agenda.

Scientists are disappointed by the commission's vote. But they anticipate that the National Ethics Council, which was created by Chancellor Gerhard Schröder earlier this year, will be more favourably disposed towards regulated imports of human ES cells. The National Ethics Council will report next week.