EU stem cell funding in jeopardy

It's not only the US where funding for stem cell research is a hottopic of discussion. In Europe, Germany, Austria and other nations opposed to European Union funding of human embryonic stem cell research proposed an EU funding ban this month in Brussels at a meeting of the EU's 25 national science ministers, raising concerns that the minority group could force nations to remove this funding from the newest budget, even for scientists in countries where the research is legal.

This means they could halt enactment of the EU's next science funding program for 2007-13, known as Framework Programme 7 (FP7), unless wording is added to the final FP7 document that would ban EU funding of human embryonic stem cell research.

Under the current Framework Programme 6 (FP6) guidelines, the EU gives funding priority to human adult stem cell research and will not fund any research on embryonic stem cells conducted in member states that forbid the research.

Under FP6, eight projects involving human embryonic stem cell research have been funded and nearly 100 involving human adult stem cells have received funding approval.

Read the full article from 'The Scientist'.