The final NIH Guidelines for Human Stem Cell Research became effective on July 7, 2009, implementing President Barack H. Obama’s Executive Order 13505 Removing Barriers to Responsible Scientific Research Involving Human Stem Cells. The NIH Guidelines establish policy and procedures under which the NIH will fund human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research. The final NIH Guidelines are available at: http://stemcells.nih.gov/index.asp.