By Paul Basken

The University of Nebraska's Board of Regents, despite heavy lobbying by religious groups, narrowly voted on Friday to uphold the expansion of research on human embryonic stem cells, as permitted by the Obama administration.

The regents, meeting at the university's Lincoln campus, voted 4 to 4 on a proposal that the system observe limits on stem-cell studies imposed by the Bush administration, a tie vote that meant the resolution failed.

The regents, an elected body, were caught between pressure that included a letter from 255 Nebraska researchers and medical professionals seeking the stem-cell limits, and appeals from university administrators, faculty members, and students warning against them.

Weeks of suspense over the university's policy finally ended when James E. McClurg, the only one of the eight voting regents who had not made his position known in advance, revealed his opposition to the proposal at the end of a three-hour meeting.

Mr. McClurg, president of the Technical Development Resources Company, a consulting and investment firm in Lincoln, said he remained "pro-life." He said, however, that he had come to the conclusion that a state law enacted last year to ban the creation and destruction of embryos for research already "establishes appropriate legal and ethical boundaries."

Regents on both sides of the vote said they recognized that the question of expanding such research into the realm of embryonic stem cells was not an easy decision. "This is, without a doubt, one of the most difficult and controversial issues" that the board members will ever face, said Robert L. Whitehouse, a regent who voted to observe the new federal guidelines.

Old Research and New

President Obama, largely to the approval of research scientists, signed orders in March reversing an eight-year-old federal restriction on experimentation with human embryonic stem cells imposed by President George W. Bush.

Embryonic stem cells, because of their very early stage of development, have the potential to grow into any of the more than 200 types of tissue in the body. That raises the possibility of cures for a range of ailments, including cancers, diabetes, and heart disease.

But Mr. Bush, siding with those who believe any potential human life form should be preserved, announced in August 2001 that federal money could not be involved with any projects using embryonic stem cells created after that date.

The limited number of stem cells derived from those embryos, and their deteriorating quality, made stem-cell research increasingly off-limits to researchers, most of whom rely on federal money for at least some of their work.

Yet researchers have found some alternatives over the past eight years. For example, cells taken from a patient or other donor can be engineered to resemble stem cells.

Advocates of the research ban proposed by some of the Nebraska regents said they hoped that such a policy shift would help make the university a leader in research using other sources of stem cells.

"This is a vote in opposition to one form of stem-cell research," said one regent, Robert A. Phares, a former mayor of North Platte, Neb., "and in favor of the other form of stem-cell research."

Regents opposed to the resolution stressed their understanding of the religious concerns motivating supporters. "This is an issue on which people of faith and conscience can disagree," said one, Chuck Hassebrook. But, he added, "Stopping this research would save not one life, but stopping this research could cost us the possibility of saving millions of lives from horrific diseases."

A Fresh Start

The federal government also restricts the creation and destruction of embryos for research, forbidding any use of federal money for that purpose.

The University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha conducts about $100-million in research a year, and about a quarter to a third of that amount involves work with stem cells or related regenerative medicine, said Thomas H. Rosenquist, the campus's vice chancellor for research.

Only two researchers had been approved to work with the embryonic-stem-cell lines approved during the Bush administration, and their activity waned as the lines got older and less useful, Mr. Rosenquist said. The affirmation of the Obama-administration policy by the regents will probably mean about a "dozen or so" researchers will begin work with embryonic stem cells, he said.

"We avoided an obstacle today," he said, "and now we can move ahead."