The 'untouchables' of US science

[cal04]

When George Bush banned funding he effectively put researchers into quarantine
A bridge next to Kevin Eggan's laboratory overlooks one of the most concentrated square miles of scientific fire power in the world: North Yard, the science hub of Harvard. The bridge, a recent construction in glass and steel, was intended to facilitate collaboration between two research teams.

On one side is the lab run by Dr Eggan, an assistant professor of molecular and cellular biology who specialises in human embryonic stem cell research; on the other is the Bauer Centre for Genome Research, which focuses on genes.

Working together, the teams started devising projects to analyse the genetics of human embryonic stem cells, with Dr Eggan's team generating the cells on one side of the bridge and their DNA being analysed on the other side.

But on August 9 2001 a metaphorical shutter came down that closed the bridge as effectively as if it had been bricked up. George Bush issued a presidential decree banning the use of federal funds for research on new human embryonic stem cell lines.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/genes/article/0,,1979638,00.html

[beam me up scottie]

1. Goddammit.

The joint project between the Eggan lab and the Bauer Centre was an immediate casualty. It was suspended to avoid "contamination" with the centre, which does receive federal funds.

***

Over the past five years the imperative of segregating all stem cell research has created a jumble of red tape. This has allowed collaboration to restart, but at a price. In the Eggan lab each piece of equipment is marked with a sticker: green for privately funded machines that can be freely used; red for those bought by the National Institutes of Health, the federal funding body, which must not be used in stem cell research.

The most Kafkaesque is the yellow sticker. This is applied to equipment that is federally owned but where a deal has been reached: whenever a scientist uses the machine they record it in a book and the NIH is reimbursed.

He delighted anti-abortionists and the Christian right, who oppose what they see as scientists making life and death decisions. This is despite the fact that most stem cell lines derive from surplus fertilised eggs from IVF treatment that would be destroyed in any case.

Bush is the one making life and death decisions, not the scientists. He'd rather see the eggs destroyed than let them be used to find cures for disease.

[jody]

2. Perhaps we should call *'s time the "Bush Ages", a modern "Dark Ages". n/t