It was the shot heard ‘round the lab. In his inaugural address President Obama said he will “restore science to its rightful place.” But can he really do it? This is the question on everyone’s mind.

Late last week, Ira Flatow of NPR’s Science Friday spoke with Dr. Harold Varmus, the NY born and educated Nobel laureate, former head of the NIH, president of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and co-chair of the Council of Advisors on Science and Technology for the Obama administration. Varmus seemed very optimistic that the new administration will help rebuild the NIH budget by including funding for basic science research as part of the economic stimulus package that hit the senate floor this week. This would help push the U.S. to the forefront of research in fields that have been stunted by the Bush administration over the past eight years, mainly embryonic stem cell research and climate change. However, Varmus made it clear that though President Obama has a forward vision toward science, we must be patient because it is still unclear how long-term scientific budgeting will be affected by the troubled economy.

I feel that cautious optimism is the appropriate attitude to adapt toward the progression of science under the Obama administration. He has made a wide array of promises to change economic, educational, and social policies in the United States. It is virtually impossible for Obama to follow through with every promise within his first 100 days in office, given the current economic crisis. It is also likely that political roadblocks will delay scientific policy reforms. An article published today in the Philadelphia Inquirer discusses just this: the possibility that reversing the ban on embryonic stem cell research may take longer than expected. Thus, we must endure and hope that, with time, science will recover from the dark ages of the Bush era.