August 24, 2010
Blindsided by a court ruling blocking federal funding for research involving human embryonic stem cells, the U.S. government plans to freeze all new grants for scientists and impose other restrictions on this burgeoning area of science.
The National Institutes of Health said it has abandoned its planned review of 50 new grant applications, and will not proceed with a second-level review of about a dozen applications valued at $15 million to $20 million. Also frozen is a planned review in September of another 22 grant applications totaling $54 million.
The preliminary injunction against federal funding for the research was issued on Monday by Judge Royce Lamberth of U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. The judge said that federal funding violated a 1996 law prohibiting federal money for research in which an embryo was destroyed.
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