1/19/12: More Embryonic Stem Cell Lines Approved by Obama Administration

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National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins has approved four more human embryonic stem cell lines as eligible for federal taxpayer funding. The latest approval raises the total number of human embryonic stem cell lines at the federal trough to 146. The four new lines are all from UCLA.

The latest approvals come less than a month after Collins approved new lines from the University of Queensland in Australia.

The technology used to freeze embryos has been used on more than 400,000 embryos since the 1970s. Only a fraction of that number has been implanted in the wombs of women in order to develop and be born. That means hundreds of thousands of tiny humans exist in storage at fertility clinics.