Embryonic stem cells are proving hard to standardize. Credit: luismmolina/istockphoto

Funds for human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research are flowing again following a temporary ban on federal support for such research. A lower court injunction imposed by US District Court Judge Royce Lamberth on August 23 was lifted mid-September by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. When the injunction was issued, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) responded by broadly suspending its funding for grants and contracts involving hESC research, including for projects that took shape under the restrictive federal policies of the Bush Administration. For now, that blanket ban is lifted, but the issue is far from resolved. The lawsuit that led to the injunction is still pending. “We are pleased with the Court's interim ruling, which will allow promising stem cell research to continue while we present further arguments to the Court,” says NIH director Francis Collins. The ongoing legal battle is seen as harmful to hESC research across the world as it will slow progress and stymie collaborations with US researchers. As Ian Wilmut at the MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine in the UK puts it: “Any disruption of [hESC] research, such as that imposed by the present injunction, will have a chilling effect on research throughout the world.” According to Elaine Fuchs of Rockefeller University, New York, president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research, “Halting federal funding for such research impedes efforts aimed at 'translating' this knowledge into new and improved treatments for patients.”

The lawsuit was brought in part by the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a group of “Christian attorneys and like-minded organizations,” based in Scottsdale, Arizona. ADF, acting on the behalf of “doctors opposed to the [Obama] Administration's [hESC research] policy,” argues that this policy violates the federal Dickey-Wicker Amendment, which prohibits “federal funding of research involving the destruction of human embryos.” The Administration says that its hESC research policy complies with that law because cells from human embryos are donated from private sources and no federal funds are used obtaining them. Congress, with Representative Diana DeGette (D-CO) as a chief sponsor, twice passed legislation that would explicitly permit federal funding for hESC research, but former President Bush vetoed those bills. Although President Obama would surely sign such a bill, moving it through Congress seems unlikely anytime soon.