The U.S. Justice Department said Tuesday it will appeal as early as this week a judge’s ruling to ban federal funding of embryonic stem cell.

Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters the administration will ask the U.S. Court of Appeals to lift the preliminary injunction issued on Monday.

The injunction, made by District Judge Royce Lamberth, said all embryonic stem cell research involves destroying embryos, which violates the Dickey-Wicker Amendment included in federal spending bills.

The ruling comes after the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) last year issued new guidelines permitting federal funding for research on certain stem cell lines that had already been created.

The Dickey-Wicker Amendment is the name of an appropriation’s bill rider attached to a bill passed by U.S. Congress in 1995, and signed by former President Bill Clinton which prohibits the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from using appropriated funds for the creation of human embryos for research purposes or for research in which human embryos are destroyed. HHS funding includes the funding for NIH funding.

The amendment language has been added to each of the Labor, HHS, and Education appropriations acts for FY1997 through FY2009.

The court challenge was brought by adult stem cell researchers who argued the new rules not only would increase competition for limited funds, but violated federal law.

Lamberth’s ruling was a blow to the Obama administration, which approved federal funds for expanded embryonic stem cell research on March 9, 2009. The decision was a clear repudiation of the approach taken by the Bush White House.

The White House said Tuesday it was exploring “all possible avenues” to ensure such research could continue.

“The president said very plainly when he laid out his stem cell policy that this is important, potentially life-saving research that could have an impact on millions of Americans and people all around the world,” White House deputy spokesman Bill Burton told reporters in Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts, where President Barack Obama is on vacation.

“He thinks that we need to do research. He put forward stringent ethical guidelines and he thinks that his policy is the right one,” Burton said.

Before the appeal was announced, National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins said Monday’s ruling “has just poured sand into the engine of discovery.”

“Frankly, I was stunned, as was virtually everyone at NIH, by the judicial decision yesterday,” Collins told reporters in a telephone briefing.

Though dozens of stem cell experiments will continue because the money already is in scientists’ hands, Collins said, dozens more studies of promising stem cell therapies will have to stop because of the ruling.

“This decision has the potential to do serious damage to one of the most promising areas of biomedical research, and just at the time that we were beginning to gain momentum,” Collins said.

“Human embryonic stem cell research, done responsibly and ethically, is one of the most exciting opportunities to come along in a long time. And in just the last year we have made so much progress in getting this area expanded.”

“Very promising research will not get done,” Collins said. He said researchers would become discouraged and some may even leave the United States to do their work.

Embryonic stem cells are cells contained in embryos that have the ability to transform themselves into virtually any other type of cell in the body. Scientists believe that embryonic stem cell research could eventually produce cures for a variety of diseases, including Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, heart disease and spinal cord injuries.

However, for some people, the destruction of any embryo is tantamount to murdering a human being. Some religious and political figures hold this view.