With dramatic shifts in both the economic and political landscape for stem cell research, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM)--a state initiative set up to avoid restrictions on federal research laid down in 2001 by President George W. Bush--is scaling back, rethinking its priorities, and looking at how to mesh its activities with those that will soon be funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The latter is somewhat tricky, as exactly what types of research NIH will support now that President Barack Obama has rescinded the Bush restrictions with his executive order (Science, 20 March, p. 1552)--and how much of the $8.2 billion in NIH's stimulus package will go into stem cell research--remain unclear.
The Center for Genetics and Society, a public interest group in Oakland, California, has hinted that the state may find better ways to spend its money now that the economy is tanking and NIH is no longer inhibited by the Bush policy. But scientists point out that as long as NIH has to comply with the Dickey-Wicker Amendment prohibiting research with human embryos...