NIH resumes funding for stem cell research

In the meantime, the NIH said it is lifting its suspension of all grants and contracts involving use of the cells. “We are pleased with the court’s interim ruling, which will allow promising stem cell research to continue’’ while the court battle is waged, said the NIH’s statement.

Scientists who already had received NIH grants had been told to continue working until their dollars ran out, but that 22 projects due to get yearly checks in September would have to find other money.

Now the question is whether the NIH will finish the reviews required for those projects during what could be only a temporary reprieve. The case is certain to be in courts for many months before there’s a final resolution.

Embryonic stem cells are master cells that can turn into any tissue of the body, and researchers hope one day to harness that power to cure diseases.

Culling them from embryos left over after fertility treatment kills a days-old embryo. A 1996 law prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars in work that harms an embryo, so batches have been culled using private money. But those batches can reproduce in lab dishes indefinitely, and government policies say using taxpayer dollars to work with the already created batches is OK.

The lawsuit was filed by two scientists who argued that President Obama’s expansion of the number of stem cell lines available for government funding jeopardized their ability to win grants to research adult stem cells — ones that create specific types of tissues — because of extra competition. One of the scientists is James L. Sherley, researcher with Boston Biomedical Research Institute in Watertown.