UCSF Chancellor J. Michael Bishop (center, above President Obama) at the White House

UCSF Chancellor J. Michael Bishop, MD, joined his scientific colleagues on March 9 to witness President Barack Obama signing an executive order overturning the Bush administration's restrictions on federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research.

Also present with Obama at the White House were 2008 UCSF Medal recipient Janet Davison Rowley, MD, an internationally recognized cancer expert, and Harold Varmus, MD, co-chairman of the President's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology and Bishop's co-recipient of the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Obama also signed a presidential memorandum directing the head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to "develop a strategy for restoring scientific integrity to government decision-making."

Obama's executive order calls for proper oversight and directs the National Institutes of Health to draft guidelines within 120 days for the conduct of embryonic stem cell research.

Photo by Chuck Kennedy