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LOS ANGELES -- The creation of California's stem cell agency in 2004 was greeted by scientists and patients as a turning point in a field mired in debates about the destruction of embryos and hampered by federal research restrictions. The taxpayer-funded institute wielded the extraordinary power to dole out $3 billion in bond proceeds to fund embryonic stem cell work with an eye toward treatments for a host of crippling diseases. Midway through its mission, with several high-tech labs constructed, but little to show on the medicine front beyond basic research, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine faces an uncertain...

Subsidies: A firm that received tax dollars to pursue embryonic stem cell research abandons what was touted as the most promising avenue of research for medical miracles. Then there's that "conscience thing." When Geron Corp. announced in January 2010 that the first clinical trial using its embryonic stem cells to treat an actual human patient was under way, its stock shot up 6.4%. Geron got the first Food and Drug Administration license to use embryonic stem cells to treat people in a clinical trial, in this case patients with a spinal cord injury. Last week Geron announced that it was...

Science: Supporters of California's failed 2004 stem-cell law will ask strapped taxpayers to support another $3 billion bond initiative in 2014. Maybe it's time to restore fiscal sanity as well as science to its rightful place. When it was passed in 2004, Proposition 71, with its $3 billion state fund and 10-year mandate for embryonic stem-cell research (ESCR), held out the promise of imminent miracle cures for everything from spinal disorders to Parkinson's. One campaign ad showed actor Christopher Reeve, aka Superman, asking California voters to "stand up for those who can't." Some six years later, with about $1.1 billion...

After six years, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine has faced questions about leaders' pay and the lack of medical breakthroughs. But its chairman plans to ask voters for another $3 billion in bonds. When millionaire Silicon Valley real estate developer Bob Klein launched his ballot drive to create a $3-billion state fund for stem-cell research in 2004, he pitched it as a way of taking politics out of science and focusing on cures. One particularly heartbreaking campaign ad showed former big screen Superman Christopher Reeve paralyzed in a wheelchair, struggling for breath and imploring California voters to "stand up...

Bioethics: Five years after a budget-busting $3 billion was allocated to embryonic stem cell research, there have been no cures, no therapies and little progress. So supporters are embracing research they once opposed. California's Proposition 71 was intended to create a $3 billion West Coast counterpart to the National Institutes of Health, empowered to go where the NIH could not — either because of federal policy or funding restraints on biomedical research centered on human embryonic stem cells. Supporters of the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative, passed in 2004, held out hopes of imminent medical miracles that were...

3 Billion wasted dollars. No cures. No treatments. California’s Prop. 71 initiative that pushed $3 billion in funding towards embryonic stem cell research five years ago has failed. The program promised to release cures and treatments held up by President Bush’s stupidity. There have been plenty of advancements including treatments to illness using adult stem cells. Even the Catholic church is a supporter of stem cell research, which many find completely unbelievable since they do not understand the difference between “stem cells” and “embryonic stem cells.”

Bioethics: The former director of the National Institutes of Health, once an enthusiast for embryonic stem cells, now says their future has "dimmed." So why is the administration bailing out research into such therapies while troubled states like California have committed billions?Aside from creating or saving a few research jobs, the administration's decision to federally fund embryonic stem cell research is, as we've noted, a bailout of bad science. It throws money at an avenue of research that time and adult stem cell progress have passed by. Applauding the administration's move was Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., who echoed the claims...

LOS ANGELES, March 9 (Xinhua) -- California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday applauded President Barack Obama for lifting funding ban on stem cell research. "President Obama's executive order is a huge win for the millions of people who suffer from spinal cord injuries, diabetes, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Multiple Sclerosis and many other illnesses," Schwarzenegger said in a statement. "Californians were the first in the nation to support and fund embryonic stem cell research and we are big believers in the power of this revolutionary science to not only improve but to save lives." Earlier on Monday, Obama abolished contentious Bush-era restraints...

California's stem-cell agency will stick to its plan of incurring debt by selling bonds to private investors despite an agreement hashed out by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state legislative leaders aimed at plugging a $42 billion shortfall over 17 months in the state's budget, an official for the agency said last week. "It will actually improve, we think, the ease with which we'll be able to do the private placements. It won't eliminate the need for them," California Institute for Regenerative Medicine spokesman Don Gibbons told BioRegion News last week. CIRM announced earlier this month it plans to privately sell...

Charges of an ethics lapse by a stem cell scientist seeking a California research grant have been resolved with a "warning letter" from the state's Fair Political Practices Commission. The controversy arose more than a year ago when Dr. John Reed, chief executive officer of the Burnham Institute for Medical Research in La Jolla (San Diego County), wrote a letter to the chief scientist of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine urging the agency to reverse its rejection of a $630,000 grant to one of the institute's scientists. Reed is a member of the Independent Citizens Oversight Committee, the state-sponsored...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has expressed “deep concern” about the state stem cell institute's plans to set the salaries for the chairman and vice chairman of its board, two positions for which no one has accepted pay in three years. With the state facing a possible $28 billion deficit, Schwarzenegger sent a letter Thursday to the stem cell institute's board urging it “to ensure that compensation for these positions is offered only if and to the extent absolutely necessary to implement its mission.” Setting a salary for the chairman of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine is on the agenda for...

California's stem cell institute has granted nearly $271 million to 12 universities and research centers to build new research laboratories. In 2004, Californians approved Proposition 71, a measure that created the California Institute for Regernerative Medicine, a $3 billion stem cell research agency. The institute says the new labs are needed to house the glut of researchers who flocked to the state to study stem cells. The largest grant announced Wednesday for a single campus will be $43.6 million for Stanford University. Nearly $137 million in funding will be divided between eight University of California campuses, with UC San Francisco...

California Controller John Chiang on Tuesday joined a consumer group in requesting an investigation of a board member of the state's $3 billion stem-cell institute and said he will audit the institute to ensure it is spending its money appropriately. Chiang said he has asked the Fair Political Practices Commission to investigate John Reed, chief executive of the Burnham Institute of La Jolla and a board member with the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. A similar complaint was lodged against Reed last week by the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights. "I want a full review," Chiang said during a...

Tuesday's announcement that scientists had found a noncontroversial way to make cells equivalent to human embryonic stem cells did not just change the scientific and ethical landscape. It generated economic and geopolitical tremors through California, New York and about half a dozen other states that have invested -- in some cases heavily -- in embryonic stem cell programs and research centers.

A prominent member of the governing board for California's stem cell agency may have violated state conflict-of-interest rules last summer when he tried to reverse a decision rejecting a grant proposal by a scientist who works for him at the Burnham Institute of Medical Research in La Jolla (San Diego County). The miscue has prompted calls for Burnham Institute chief executive Dr. John Reed to resign from the Independent Citizens Oversight Committee, the board that governs the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. "If indeed Dr. Reed has violated the law, then I think he ought to consider resigning," said Jeff...

Schwarzenegger: "I am a Catholic and a very dedicated Catholic, but" I support Research on Human Embryos TORONTO, June 1, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Speaking at a press conference at the MaRS Discovery District research centre in Toronto yesterday, actor-turned California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger defended his support for embryonic stem cell research seen as controversial in light of his self-professed Catholic faith. "I always said that you should not have your religion interfere with government policies or with the policies of the people," said Schwarzenegger. "I am a Catholic and a very dedicated Catholic, but that does not interfere with my...

California's stem cell agency announced Friday that it will hand out about $75 million in research grants to a dozen universities and nonprofit laboratories, only a month after doling out $45 million for studies. The grants far exceed the federal government's annual outlay. "As of today, California is the largest and most stable source of funding for human embryonic stem cell research in the world," said Robert N. Klein, chairman of the oversight committee that governs the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Some of the money will go to researchers looking for ways to fight Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Lou Gehrig's...

State auditors Tuesday criticized California's $3 billion stem-cell institute for lax travel and entertainment rules that let its officials sometimes get chauffeured rental cars, pricey meals and first-class air fare. The report by California State Auditor Elaine Howle also faulted the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine for using questionable data in justifying its salaries, which in some cases seemed excessive to the auditors. In addition, the report said, the institute offered vague reasoning for its policies governing how much revenue and other benefits the state should receive from those who develop products from the institute's stem-cell grants. Moreover, the report...

A state appeals court upheld California's $3 billion stem cell agency Monday against attacks by anti-abortion and tax advocates who claimed the agency's managers had conflicts of interest. The 1st District Court of Appeal upheld a decision by a lower court judge who last year ruled in favor of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which was created when Proposition 71 was passed by 59 percent of the electorate in 2004. The California Family Bioethics Council argued that the stem cell agency is rife with conflicts of interest, saying officials from three university systems who sit on the board overseeing...

A University of California Berkeley economics professor has done an analysis of the financial returns likely to come to California from stem cell research--and he said they will likely be a small fraction of what proponents of state-funded stem-cell research have estimated. Dr. Richard Gilbert originally published his report--titled "Dollars for Genes: Revenue Generation by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine"--in the Berkeley Technology Law Journal in June. It finds that the state will likely make only minimal financial returns on any stem cell research it funds via the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). "The study finds that stem...