Posted on 03/01/2006 5:15:20 PM PST by NormsRevenge
The fate of the nation's most ambitious stem cell research agency will soon rest in the hands of a California judge as the weeklong trial challenging the institute's legality neared conclusion Wednesday.
Three taxpayer groups have alleged in two lawsuits that the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine lacks the proper state government oversight to dole out $3 billion in stem cell grants over the next 10 years. They also accused the board that oversees the agency as being rife with conflict of interests and wrongly exempting itself from the state's open-meeting law.
The trial was expected to end Thursday after lawyers finished wrangling over what e-mail and other written evidence could be considered and then closing arguments were to be submitted in writing to Alameda County Superior Court Judge Bonnie Lewman Sabraw, who will decide the verdict in the non-jury trial.
An influential "working group" of 15 scientists and 7 patient advocates consider grant applications behind closed doors and recommends to the 29-member board that oversees the institute what projects should be funded. Proposition 71, which created the institute and was passed by 59 percent of the electorate in 2004, specifically exempts those grant deliberations from the state's open-meeting law.
Zach Hall, the agency's president, was the only witness called Wednesday and he defended the institute's confidential grant review process as typical and "essential" of such scientific funding endeavors such as the National Institutes of Health.
"This method is confidential because science is a competitive enterprise," said Hall, who is also the agency's top scientist.
Hall also said the confidential grant discussions also bolster frank scientific opinions about applications.
The taxpayers groups said that at least five members of the 29-member board have conflicts because they are University of California officials and the school's various campuses have already applied for stem cell grants. Others on the board are biotechnology executives and investors whose investments could benefit from stem cell grants.
Stem cell agency officials have said that the officials were appointed to the board because they have specialized scientific expertise and that they won't deliberate or participate in any decisions related to the UC campuses they represent.
The institute has been unable to fund any grants because the lawsuits have scared off Wall Street investors who won't purchase any of the $3 billion in bonds until the litigation is resolved. Agency officials say even with a favorable ruling in the trial, it will still take 15 months for bond money to start flowing because of expected appeals.
Still, at least one out-of-state biotechnology company has opened a California lab in hopes of benefiting from Proposition 71 if it is upheld.
Worcester, Mass.-based Advanced Cell Technology formally opened a 10,000 square-foot stem cell lab in Alameda on Tuesday.
"This move to California will allow us to gain significant momentum by being able to take advantage of a favorable environment for funding," said company chief executive William Caldwell.
The odor of apricot pits permeates the deal.
It's more likely the financial poo-bahs on Wall Street detect fraudulent schemes at work than that they were scared off by this lawsuit.
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