SAN DIEGO -- President Barack Obama's decision to abolish restraints on stem cell research was met with plenty of praise locally, 10News reported.

"I think it's something we've been hoping for, for quite awhile, "said Dr. Travis Berggren of the Salk Institute in San Diego.

Berggren mirrors with what other medical researchers on Torrey Pines Mesa are saying -- that a big step toward discovering the promise and potential of stem cell research has been taken.

"An embryonic cell, a human cell that has the full potential to become everything … and that's the real exciting news today, to apply for federal dollars to work on these kinds of cells," said Berggren.

While this executive order won't lead to immediate cures of Alzheimer's or diabetes, researchers here at the Salk Institute are saying is that it will lead to a better understanding of the biological process.

"Obama is fulfilling the promise of saying, 'My administration will honor science and data as the benchmark by which we make policies,'" said Dr. Even Snyder at the Burnham Institute.

Previously, the rules stated that if funding under the Bush administration stipulated it was a National Institute of Health Project researchers had to use different equipment.

While Obama's executive order is seen as a positive step, all barriers to stem cell research have not been lifted.

"We can now use NIH research or lines that already exist after 2001, but we still cannot generate new stem cell lines using NIH funding," said Snyder.

That would be up to Congress to change, but lifting the ban, said Snyder, if nothing else is a huge symbolic step.

The order could prove to be very meaningful for researchers in San Diego, such as the Salk and Burnham institutes, the University of California, San Diego and Scripps.

If more grant money is available San Diego would be well positioned to attract more researchers into the lab and possibly gain results that much faster.