President Obama plans to sign an executive order today largely ending eight years of limits on federal financing of human-embryonic-stem-cell research that have tangled university laboratories in bureaucracy while slowing advances in one of the most promising fields of medical research.
Mr. Obama is acting just three weeks after he signed an economic-stimulus measure that allocates more than $10-billion for medical research (The Chronicle, February 25). His move will now free some of that money for an avenue of work fraught with ethical and political dilemmas and yet loaded with potential for fighting mankindâ??s toughest diseases.