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TechnoratiObama's new approach will enable federally funded researchers to use hundreds of new embryonic stem cell lines. Supporters believe the research could lead to treatments for major disorders, such as Parkinson's disease and spinal injuries.
Eight states bucked the Bush administration limits and allowed state money to be spent on the research: California, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York.
Some of them, struggling with gaping budget deficits, may rein in state funding for those research programs, now that federal dollars will again be flowing.
Sean Tipton, director of public affairs at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, said legislation that would affect stem cell research has been introduced in several states, including Alabama, Georgia, Maryland, Montana, North Dakota and South Carolina.
"It's clearly part of a national strategy and at some point it will probably succeed," Tipton said.
Tipton said advocacy groups are targeting states where they have the best chance of success.
One of those is Georgia, where Gov. Sonny Perdue has said he opposes embryonic stem cell research, even as he tries to lure biotech companies to state.
"I am absolutely opposed to creating embryos to cure a disease," Perdue told reporters this week.
The Georgia bill cleared the Senate Health and Human Services Committee by a close 7-6. The religious conservatives pushing it are influential with Georgia's Republican-led Legislature.
Opponents say the Senate bill would be a blow to the state's thriving research universities, as well as fertility clinics that perform thousands of in-vitro treatments every year.
"We have the president of the United States saying he is going to put science ahead of politics and unfortunately in Georgia we are moving in the opposite directions," said state Sen. David Adelman, a Democrat from Decatur.
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