Get Your Lines Approved

NIH launched a new website where researchers can submit requests for approval of human embryonic stem cell lines, notes Science Progress. The site, http://stemcells.nih.gov/, is up and running, and accepted lines may be used in federally-funded projects. Also, the new members of the Working Group for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Eligibility Review were announced. The group will be led by the University of Utah School of Medicine Jeffrey Botkin. The Bioethics blog of The American Journal of Bioethics notes that Botkin and two other working group members are "card-carrying bioethicists." "What will this mean for the quality of the review, time will only tell, but it certainly means that ethics will be at the forefront and values questions will certainly be at the center of the debate," blogger Summer Johnson writes.