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Federal policy and the use of pluripotent stem cells

Nature Methods volume 7, pages 866–867 (2010)Cite this article

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To the Editor:

In March 2009, US President Barack H. Obama ended eight years of restrictions on federal funding for human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research1. Obama's policy expanded funding for research and directed the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop a process for certifying the ethical derivation of any line submitted to an NIH registry, including a recertification of lines approved during the George W. Bush administration (NIH Human Embryonic Stem Cell Registry Under Former President Bush, 9 August 2001–9 March 2009). What little relief the policy provided to researchers was dashed in August 2010 when a US district court temporarily barred the use of federal funds for any type of hESC research2.

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Figure 1: Frequency of appearance of research using hESC lines on posters at the ISSCR conference in 2010.

References

  1. Administration of Barack H. Obama. Executive order 13505 (9 March 2009).

  2. Anonymous. Nat. Methods 7, 769 (2010).

  3. Scott, C.T., McCormick, J.B. & Owen-Smith, J. Nat. Biotechnol. 27, 696–697 (2009).

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Acknowledgements

We thank the scientists who spoke with us, and J. Ostergren, R.J. Vann, L. Ooi and M. Feret for help with data collection and research assistance. C.T.S. was supported by a US National Science Foundation (NSF) grant (SBE-0949708) and The Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine. J.B.M was supported by an NSF grant (SBE 0949708) and NIH National Center for Research Resources (UL1 RR024150-4). J.O.-S. was supported by NSF grants (SBE-0949708 and SES-0545634.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Program on Stem Cells and Society, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA

    Christopher Thomas Scott & Mindy C DeRouen

  2. The Stem Cell Advisors, Inc., Palo Alto, California, USA

    Christopher Thomas Scott & Mindy C DeRouen

  3. Divisions of General Internal Medicine and Health Care Policy Research, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA

    Jennifer B McCormick

  4. Sociology and Organizational Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

    Jason Owen-Smith

Authors
  1. Christopher Thomas Scott
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  2. Jennifer B McCormick
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  3. Mindy C DeRouen
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  4. Jason Owen-Smith
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Correspondence to Christopher Thomas Scott or Jason Owen-Smith.

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Scott, C., McCormick, J., DeRouen, M. et al. Federal policy and the use of pluripotent stem cells. Nat Methods 7, 866–867 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth1110-866

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