San Francisco Business Times
Stanford University, the University of California, Berkeley, UCSF and the Buck Institute for Age Research are among 12 institutions recommended for the second round of $225 million in major facilities grants from California’s stem cell agency.
A working group of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine‘s oversight committee said the applicants encompassed a breadth of stem cell research and development: therapies, diagnostics and technologies for treating injury or disease.
The grants, which will be awarded in April after a second-round review, will fund new facilities, expand research capacity and improvements that CIRM officials have said could lead to $500 million in capital projects related to stem cell research.
CIRM is funded from California voters’ approval in 2004 of $3 billion in bond sales. The major facilities grants would be the most visible awards, though CIRM to date has granted 156 research and small facilities grants totaling nearly $260 million.
The applicants are seeking funding for one of three types of CIRM facilities. Those are:
– CIRM Institutes — funded at $25 million to $50 million — to carry out basic and discovery stem cell research, translational research, and preclinical development and clinical research. UCSF’s and Stanford’s applications are in this category.
– CIRM Centers of Excellence — with projects asking for $10 million to $25 million — to conduct stem cell research in any two of three areas above. The Buck Institute‘s and UC Berkeley‘s applications fall into this category.
– CIRM Special Programs — for awards of $5 million to $10 million — to conduct specialized stem cell projects in one of the three categories. Other applicants for CIRM Institutes are the San Diego Consortium for Regenerative Medicine — consisting of the Burnham Institute for Medical Research, Scripps Research Institute, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies and UC San Diego — as well as UC Davis, UC Irvine, UCLA and the University of Southern California.
Special programs applicants are UC Merced, UC Santa Barbara and UC Santa Cruz. The Buck Institute and UC Berkeley are the only Centers of Excellence applicants.
The first round of the grant process addressed the scientific breadth and depth of the stem cell research program and the relationship of the proposed major facility to that program. The second round will involve an evaluation of the technical aspects of an applicant’s building program, how the program aligns with CIRM‘s objectives and why the program represents a value for California taxpayers.
CIRM hasn’t set a deadline for the second part of the applications. Interim CIRM President Richard Murphy and Robert Klein, chairman of CIRM‘s oversight committee, said in a joint statement that the “particularly complex applications” require significant planning and investment. CIRM‘s announcement faced criticism from a taxpayer watchdog organization.
The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, based in Santa Monica, said release of the news makes a mockery of CIRM‘s claims of openness and transparency. “We don’t know what the universities asked for,” said John Simpson, the foundation’s stem cell project director. “We only know what the scientific reviewers in their closed, clubby, secret meeting decided to recommend.” Simpson also said the applicants should have been identified from the beginning of the process.
Institutions submitted their applications in October.
“Stem cell board Chairman Robert Klein continually pays lip service to transparency,” Simpson said.
