By Jordana Lenon
With contributors Tim Kamp, Jamie Thomson, Erik Forsberg, Derek Hei, Rupa Shevde, Alta Charo, Kurt Zimmerman, Micaela
Sullivan Fowler, Karin Borgh, Steve Duncan, and Bryan Renk.

April showers brought a flowering of stem cell research advances to Wisconsin in 2010. That month alone, the NIH reapproved federal funding for research using the “gold standard” original James Thomson embryonic stem cell line H9, the most used and cited in scientific research. Also reapproved were three other original “Wisconsin” lines, H7, H13, and H14. These four Bush-era lines along with H1, reapproved in January, date to Thomson’s 1998 discovery of these unique and revolutionary cells. Scientists are optimistic that these lines’ availability will continue to move the field forward and that both old and new cell lines will be used in research and clinical applications.