[DeaconRed]

Howard Hughes medical research has been doing stem cell research for years.
Howard was no lover of research. He started the lab to keep the IRS off his back. After he died the lab somehow wound up with a lot of his money.
They don't need any funds. They are 100% self sufficient. Unless they invested with Bernie. . . . . .

[Wonder Warthog]

"But almost all of the companies pursuing this sort of chancy science are small biotechnology companies -- the kind that rely on private venture capital in order to fund their high-risk and expensive endeavors."

Not really true. The true facts are that MANY very small startup technology companies get their initial funding from the feds (SBIR and similar programs), and get venture funding after the initial "proof of concept" work has been done. Probably the single most successful one I have heard about is Nanosolar (printed solar cells), who went from an SBIR grant to (today) half a billion dollars in private venture funding.

[Spok]

“the rhetoric around President Barack Obama’s decision to expand federal funding for embryonic stem-cell science reveals a widespread misconception of how medical products are created.”

Another prime example of the left’s ‘agenda over substance stance’, which applies to everything they do. Liberals don’t care about curing disease, any more than they care about womens’ rights, racial equality or the environment. The bottom line for them is the power to force their dogma down the throats of their perceived political enemies; it’s all about power, which we all know grows from the barrels of guns. Nothing else.