Fluorescence light micrograph of neurons (nerve cells) from a human foetus that resemble a close up of shrubbery.

Research on fetal tissue (pictured, fetal neurons) from elective abortions will no longer be funded by the US National Institutes of Health. Credit: Riccardo Cassiani-Ingoni/SPL

The world’s largest public funder of biomedical research will no longer support studies that use human fetal tissue derived from elective abortions.

The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) will continue to fund research on fetal tissue from miscarriages and stillbirths, according to an announcement made on 22 January. But scientists note that fetal tissue from elective abortions is the main material for research, because tissue from other sources is generally not useful for studies. Scientists also say that the new restrictions, which were applauded by opponents of abortion, will make it more difficult to study fetal development and stem-cell biology, and will slow the hunt for new medical treatments.

“It’s clearly a political decision, not a scientific one,” says Lawrence Goldstein, a retired neuroscientist who was at the University of California, San Diego.

But it is also not a dead end for all such research, he adds: some scientists will turn to a much smaller pool of private funding in lieu of government grants. “Research is going to go ahead, [the decision is] just slowing it down,” Goldstein says.

The NIH says that it funded 77 projects involving human fetal tissue in the 2024 fiscal year, and that researchers can harness technological advances in alternative methods, such as computational biology and 3D cell cultures, to conduct their studies.

Goldstein says that not all research can be done using alternative methods. “If you want to make fetal kidney cell types for further development for a disease study, you have to have actual fetal kidney to compare the stuff you made,” he says. “To not realize that reflects a complete lack of understanding of the field.”

Gold standard

Goldstein is echoed by Steven Finkbeiner, a neurologist at the University of California, San Francisco, who received a grant in the 2024 fiscal year for a proposal that included fetal-tissue research. Finkbeiner says his team uses stem cells to study Alzheimer’s disease, but “the human fetal-tissue work is also critical because it remains the gold standard”. He adds: “It remains very difficult to fully recapitulate the complexity of human tissue.”

The NIH responded: “New and emerging technologies continue to progress to assist scientists with human disease modeling, and NIH will work to evaluate such technologies and determine how they can reduce our reliance on human fetal-tissue and animal models.”

On 23 January, the US Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the NIH, announced that the entire department will stop supporting research that uses fetal tissue from elective abortions. The NIH also suspended the addition of new human embryonic stem-cell lines to the agency’s registry of those approved for agency-funded research while it investigates alternatives.

Changes of course

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