AAAS CEO Alan I. Leshner hailed a U.S. judge’s ruling Wednesday that allows continued federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, saying it would allow “extremely promising” medical research to advance.

U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth dismissed a lawsuit challenging federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, deferring to a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals that the research did not violate a federal law that bars the government from funding research that requires the destruction of embryos.