Endocrine Insider
April 29, 2010

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The National Institutes of Health (NIH) on Tuesday approved 13 additional human embryonic stem cell lines for use in federally funded research, bringing the total number of eligible lines listed on the NIH website to 64.  Among the recently approved lines were four submitted by the University of Wisconsin’s WiCell Research Institute, including its H7 and H9 lines, which have been widely used in research. 

The approval provides reassurance to researchers who might have been concerned about the work they performed prior to President Obama’s Executive Order lifting the ban on federal funding of stem cell research.  While the intent of the Order was to broaden the number of cell lines available for funding, it also presented ethical requirements in terms of the process by which the cell lines were derived, and it was unclear whether lines derived prior to the Order would meet these requirements.  In its approval process, the NIH evaluates whether cell lines meet all the stated criteria.

An additional 100 cell lines have been submitted to NIH and are currently under review for approval.  The complete lists of approved and pending cell lines are available here: http://stemcells.nih.gov/research/registry.