Globe reporter Tracy Jan is now reporting out of DC after a stint as the paper’s higher ed reporter. In today’s paper, she offers a story on the politics of stem cell research that bridges both beats.

WASHINGTON – Nearly all of the Republican presidential candidates would put the brakes on President Obama’s efforts to broaden federal spending on embryonic stem cell research, a move many scientists feel would jeopardize the future of a promising but controversial field that has been whipsawed by political shifts over the past decade.

Tweet 3 people Tweeted this.ShareThis .The prospect of an about-face in White House policy alarms researchers, who in 2009 hailed Obama’s executive order to lift Bush-era restrictions on taxpayer support for this type of work as the end of the scientific Dark Ages. Last month, a federal judge dismissed a legal challenge to government funding for the experimentation.