Embryonic stem cell research stalled despite Obama's try at lifting restrictions

Researchers with existing federal grants can continue to work on the old lines regardless of whether they have been approved under the new policy. But any research involving new grants, including those awarded using the flood of new funding the NIH received as part of the stimulus package, can only use lines approved under the new policy. That has left researchers scrambling to decide how to proceed: They can wait in the hopes that the lines they've been using will be approved. Or they can switch to a new line.

"We're in this funky limbo state," said Michael Kyba, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota, who has been using the most popular of the original lines, known as H9, to study how stem cells morph into specific tissues. H9 has not yet been approved under the new guidelines.

Kyba's is one of several laboratories in the third year of a five-year $2.5 million grant. That work will be able to continue, but Kyba and others are uncertain whether they will have to switch lines when the grant comes up for renewal if H9 has not been approved by then.

"We're in the dark. That's the really frustrating thing," Kyba said.

Kyba also was awarded a $500,000 grant that he intended to use to study the H9 line, but switched to one of the newly approved lines because of the uncertainty. That will require him to do additional work to replicate advances he had already made with the H9 line.

"The error they made is assuming that it's easy to switch lines. Some can be switched quickly, but most of it's wasted time," he said.

Some researchers have spent years studying the lines, including sometimes painstakingly making genetic alterations needed to tease out key information.

"Now we have to start over and invest the time and energy to create a whole new tool set when in a year or two these lines could be approved again," Kamp said. "No one wants anyone spinning their wheels and wasting resources."