Dec 11, 2018

NIH seeks alternatives to fetal tissue

The National Institutes of Health will release a funding opportunity soon for research into a potential replacement for fetal tissue.

Flashback: HHS announced in September that it was pulling back on federally funded research that relied on fetal tissue — a move anti-abortion advocates had pushed for.

  • Some scientists worried about the change, because fetal tissue is used in a lot of research.

So the NIH is looking for an alternative, and will spend up to $20 million over the next 2 years.

  • Specifically, it said it's looking to "develop and/or further refine human tissue models that closely mimic and can be used to faithfully model human embryonic development or other aspects of human biology ... that do not rely on the use of human fetal tissue obtained from elective abortions."

Go deeper: NIH launches massive program to diversify medical research

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Louisville officer: "Breonna Taylor would be alive" if we had served no-knock warrant

Breonna Taylor memorial in Louisville. Photo: Brandon Bell/Getty Images

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Driving the news: Mattingly, who spoke to ABC News and Louisville's Courier Journal for his public interview, was shot in the leg in the initial moments of the March 13 raid. Mattingly did not face any charges after Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron said he and another officer were "justified" in returning fire to protect themselves against Taylor's boyfriend.

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The big picture: Once a generation, it seems, federal regulators decide to take on a dominant tech company. Two decades ago, Microsoft was the target; two decades before that, IBM.

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Why the stimulus delay isn't a crisis (yet)

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

If the impasse between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the White House on a new stimulus deal is supposed to be a crisis, you wouldn't know it from the stock market, where prices continue to rise.

  • That's been in no small part because U.S. economic data has held up remarkably well in recent months thanks to the $2 trillion CARES Act and Americans' unusual ability to save during the crisis.
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