Judge halts expansion of federal stem cell research with court order

On Monday, August 23, Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth of Federal District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that President Obama’s 2009 executive order expanding embryonic stem cell research violates a ban on federal money being used to destroy embryos. The National Institutes of Health issued this notice: "NIH is not accepting submissions of information about human embryonic stem cell lines for NIH review. All review of human embryonic stem cell lines under the NIH Guidelines is suspended. The February 23, 2010, proposal to revise the Guidelines is also suspended." Stem cell research can still be carried out using private funds.

For more information, visit the New York Times for the full article.

NSF requests white papers for future research topic ideas

The National Science Foundation's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences directorate is requesting white papers from the NSF community "outlining grand challenge questions that are both foundational and transformative" to help guide the directorate's future research direction. White papers are limited to 2,000 words and must arrive by September 30. Please see the full Dear Colleague letter here: NSF 10-069.

NIH to eliminate error correction windows

The National Institutes of Health, starting on January 25, 2011, will no longer allow for error correction after the due date once the application has successfully entered the eRA Commons system. The error correction window was instituted in 2005 when the Grants.gov system was new, to facilitate the transition from paper to electronic application procedures. The elimination of the correction window will bring the NIH in line with other sponsors such as the National Science Foundation and other federal agencies. For more information, please visit Notice OD-10-23.