What is the current status of human embryonic stem cell and somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) research?
Both kinds of research are perfectly legal. However, you can’t use National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding on SCNT research, and you can only conduct human embryonic stem cell research with NIH funds under very tight restrictions set out by the president in 2001. But there was a bill passed last May in the House of Representatives — the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005 — that would lift most of those restrictions. We expect the Senate to take this up early this year. Even in the face of the president’s restrictions, however, there’s a lot of good work being done. Scientists in this field tell me they remain very optimistic for the prospects for stem cell research. How has the Bush administration’s policy affected this research? What the president has done is say that NIH-funded scientists can only work on stem cell lines that were created prior to August of 2001. Unfortunately, this action has forced them to work with older and inferior materials, and additionally there a
