Today, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced the approval of the first 13* human embryonic stem cell (hESC) lines for use in NIH-funded research.  Children’s Hospital in Boston developed 11 of the approved lines and Rockefeller University in New York City developed two additional lines.

All of the approved lines were obtained from embryos left over by couples seeking treatment for infertility who consented to their use for research under the NIH’s Guidelines for Human Stem Cell Research. Read the rest of this entry »

On Friday, August 7, the Senate unanimously confirmed the appointment of Francis Collins, MD, PhD, as the new director of the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Collins is both a physician and an expert in genetics.  He led the Human Genome Project to an early success in identifying and sequencing the 25,000 genes in the human genome and headed the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) from 1993 through 2008. Read the rest of this entry »