“NIH funding, which supports essentially all other avenues of biomedical research, is prohibited except for the small number of lines that were in existence prior to August 2001,” says Hyman. “These funding rules create substantial burdens for our scientists because it means that equipment and supplies purchased with federal funds cannot be used by our stem cell scientists.”

In addition, researchers have been faced with the question of streamlining the ethics of stem cell research—and whether Harvard should impose a uniform code across all its hospitals and institutes, or whether each organization dealing with stem cells can be autonomous.

According to Kathleen M. Buckley, assistant provost for science policy, Harvard

researchers will try to unify their ethical regulations within the next few months.

“As independent institutions, the hospitals are working with Harvard University to figure out how to deal with embryonic stem cells, and what form of cooperation that will take,” Buckley says. “We want to stick together in this. We’re not exactly set up, I think that’s going to take us the summer.”

But through the variety of challenges that the researchers have faced—whether that be the obligations of political testimony or the pressure exerted by private funding—scientists have been able to rely on unflagging support from the highest administrators.

As Summers said at the inauguration of HSCI, “We have the potential to make this place, right here...the center of research in one of the most important and significant, if not the most important and significant areas, of the life sciences, one of the most significant, if not the most significant, areas in all of intellectual life.”

—Staff writer Risheng Xu can be reached at xu4@fas.harvard.edu.