Court Orders Continued Stem Cell Funding

Federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research may proceed, a U.S. appeals court ruled Thursday, temporarily striking down an order from a lower court to block funding.

The U.S. court of appeals for the D.C. circuit ordered a temporary stay of the lower court's ruling to end funding. The court, in a one-page order, said the stay would provide its judges with a sufficient amount of time to weigh the Obama administration's emergency motion filed Wednesday to maintain funding the research, according to The Wall Street Journal.

U.S. district court judge Royce Lamberth ruled in August that government-sponsored stem cell research violated a 1996 law.

Some stem cell research focuses on their ability to eradicate HIV from a person's body. In April a 42-year-old man with HIV showed no signs of the virus in his blood after receiving a stem cell transplant with a specific gene mutation two years earlier.