When President Barack Obama lifted restrictions Monday on taxpayer-funded research using human embryonic stem cells, he did more than clear the way for a significant increase in federal dollars going toward this potentially life-saving science.
He also gave stem cell researchers a morale boost by removing a dark cloud that had been hanging over the field since former President George W. Bush set funding restrictions on the science eight years ago due to moral objections by social conservatives.
“I think it’s a morale boost for all of science,” UW-Madison neuroscientist Clive Svendsen said in a phone interview, while walking outside the White House, on Monday. “It’s wonderful having a president put science first and foremost.