The U.S. Department of Justice has asked the federal judge who halted federal funding for embryonic stem cell research to lift his injunction while it appeals the ruling.
That ruling roiled researchers around the nation and locally, who had won federal grants for research. They weren't sure if they could touch experiments in their labs aimed at finding treatments for many kinds of disease.
The Obama administration had allowed many more stem cell lines to be used for research than the Bush administration. But the ruling last week by Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia potentially put all of the lines off limits. He cited a 1996 law that barred the destruction of embryos during research.
A collection of groups had filed suit, many who didn't want embryos destroyed. But the only two left by the judge as plaintiffs were a pair of adult stem cell researchers who said grant money had become harder to come by.
At least one $500,000 project at the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University has been put in danger. The Justice department had told researchers they could continue with money already granted. The grants are all annual. Read about the original ruling and that project here.
And here is the Associated Press story.
Should the judge lift the injunction during the appeal? Should Congress change the law?
Baltimore Sun file photo of the local stem cell experiment/Jed Kirschbaum