An appeals court in Washington, D.C. has set December 6th as the date it will hear oral arguments on whether US government funding of human embryonic stem cell research should remain legal.

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Friday issued this order, summoning plaintiffs’ attorneys and government lawyers to the court at 9:30 am on the first Monday in December. It also named the three judges that will hear the case: Judges Douglas Ginsburg, Karen LeCraft Henderson and Thomas Griffith.

Griffith is the only one of the three who was on the three-judge panel that heard the first round of oral arguments in the case late September. That panel ruled that government funding for the research should continue while the case works its way through the court.

A lower, district court, may in the meantime rule separately in the case, which was brought against the government by adult stem cell researchers James Sherley and Theresa Deisher. (For full coverage of the case, see Nature’s Stem Cell Injunction Special.) But in that event, whatever side loses is expected to appeal to the Washington appeals court, making the December 6th arguments a critical juncture in the case.

Separately, today a scientist who supports the plaintiffs filed a 60-page friend-of-the-court, or amicus brief with the Court of Appeals. In it, Maureen Condic, an adult stem cell researcher at the University of Utah School of Medicine, argues in part that destruction of human embryos for research purposes is an integral part of human embryonic stem cell research, not merely a separate preparatory step, as Justice Department attorneys in the case have insisted.