The University of Wisconsin, where human embryonic stem cells were first isolated, will host the first federally funded bank of the valuable cells, the U.S. government said on Monday.The bank will house many of the officially sanctioned batches of human embryonic stem cells, the National Institutes of Health said."The National Stem Cell Bank, awarded to the WiCell Research Institute in Wisconsin, will consolidate many of the federally funded eligible human embryonic stem (ES) cell lines in one location, reduce the costs that researchers have to pay for the cells, and maintain quality control over the cells,” the NIH said in a statement.The NIH also said it would fund two centers, at the University of California, Davis and Northwestern University in Chicago, for embryonic stem-cell research.
