Cross posted from Nature’s The Great Beyond blog.

In a move not unexpected, but still shocking, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on Monday halted human embryonic stem cell experiments being conducted by researchers on its own campus in Bethesda, Maryland. The directive, communicated to researchers by Michael Gottesman (pictured), the agency’s Deputy Director for Intramural Research, came one week after a federal judge issued an injunction temporarily halting federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research until a lawsuit challenging its legality is decided.

Director Francis Collins said the next day that funding for experiments by extramural scientists would be suspended going forward. The agency made that official this evening, issuing this guidance for human embryonic stem cell researchers supported by its grants.

Until Monday morning, the agency had been silent on work by its own on-campus scienitsts. That changed when Gottesman sent the following email to staff today:

Subject: Urgent: Human embryonic stem cells

Read the rest of the post on The Great Beyond.