WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama signed an order lifting eight years of restrictions on federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research on Monday as scientists gushed, activists cheered and shares in stem cell companies rose.
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U.S. President Barack Obama signs an Executive Order on stem cell research in the East Room of the White House, March 9, 2009. (REUTERS/Larry Downing) |
Members of the U.S. Congress and executives at the National Institutes of Health said they would act swiftly to turn the new policy into law and into cash for laboratories.
Obama's executive order reversed and repudiated restrictions placed on the research by his predecessor, George W. Bush, freeing labs across the country to start working with the valued cells, which give birth to all cells and tissues in the body. [ID:nN08329064]
The move made it possible for federally funded researchers to work with human embryonic stem cells from a variety of sources, not just the few batches Bush had approved.
