Come March 28, Vito Imbascani is scheduled to be sworn in as the new chairman of the $12 billion California stem cell agency – an 18-year-old state program to develop revolutionary treatments for such things as brain and blood cancers, heart disease, diabetes, sickle cell disease, spina bifida, incontinence, blindness, arthritis, HIV, stroke, epilepsy and much more.
Gov. Gavin Newsom at the State of the State Address in January. (Photo: Sheila Fitzgerald)Gov. Gavin Newsom has rebuked California’s stem cell agency about its conduct of the election of a new chairperson for the $12 billion enterprise, a process that has been disrupted with the withdrawal of one candidate and the addition of a new one.
A major research facility of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine at UC Merced. (Photo: CIRM)Two persons with deep ties to the University of California (UC) have been nominated for the position of chair of the governing board of the $12 billion California stem cell agency. They are John A. Pérez, former chair of the UC board of regents and former leader of the state Assembly, and Emilie Marcus, executive strategy officer at the UCLA School of Medicine. It is now up to the 35-member stem cell agency board to choose between the two.
DNA is injected into a stem cell. (Photo: Spectral-Design, via Shuttertock)The California stem cell agency has just finished pumping $5.3 million into the fight to save the lives of Covid-19 victims. And — in a ballot-box bonus — its efforts are already surfacing in the ballot campaign to rescue the agency from its own demise. The agency is running out of money. It will begin closing its doors this fall without major financial support that it hopes will come from Proposition 14, a $5.5 billion bond measure on the November ballot.
Blood cells in a bone marrow smear, examined as part of stem cell research. (Photo: toeytoey, via Shutterstock)California’s state stem cell agency is down to its last $67.3 million following a decision Thursday to back research to enhance bone healing in elderly patients who undergo spinal surgery. The $4 million award went to Ankasa Regenerative Therapeutics following little discussion among members of the governing board of the $3 billion California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.