Research involving stem cells lines derived from human embryos won’t resume, after a federal judge denied a U.S. Justice Dept. request to stay a ban on federal funding of the projects.
Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia declined to stay a decision that funding of the research, which President Barack Obama had sought to restore from constraints imposed under the Bush administration. Lamberth ruled that Obama’s stem cell funding policy violated the Dickey-Wicker Amendment, which was aimed at stopping the destruction of human embryos.