Posts Tagged: Proposition 71

News

Stem cell agency chooses new board chair amidst funding uncertainty

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.

News

Tiny budget piece could have huge impact on $12B stem cell agency

An illustration of the molecular structure of human cells and a researcher with vaccine. (Image: Billion Photos, Shutterstock)

A crack opened last week for the first time in 17 years in the firewall between state politicians and the $12 billion California stem cell agency. It involves only $600,000 — at least for now — and is buried deep in the 1,069-page state budget bill that was introduced June 8. But its implications are far-reaching. They range from opening the agency to major changes — wanted and unwanted — to creating a basis for the agency’s currently dubious, long-term financial sustainability.

News

Stem cell money flows, as search expands for ‘miraculous’ cures

Photo illustration of a doctor analyzing stem cells. (Image: CI Photos, via Shutterstock)

California’s stem cell agency, created as a way to develop revolutionary cures based on human embryonic stem cells, has awarded  $316 million over the last 12 months, most of it backing a type of therapy that was not even on the agency’s radar when it was created in 2004.

News

State stem cell agency follows the money — $5.5 billion

A pipette and receptacles used in stem cell research. (Photo: CI Photos)

The talk at the California stem cell agency this week was of ”boiling the ocean,” the meaning of “unlikely” and “DEI.” All of which involves how $5.5 billion in taxpayer dollars will be used over the next decade or so.

News

Those linked to stem cell board received more than $2.1 billion

A medical researcher examines cancer stem cells. (Photo: luchschenF, via Shutterstock)

Over the last 15 years, California’s stem cell agency has spent $2.7 billion on research on everything from cancer to arthritis.  The vast majority of the money has gone to enterprises that have ties to members of the agency’s governing board. Eight out of every ten dollars that agency has handed out have been collected by 25 institutions such as Stanford University, multiple campuses of the University of California and scientific research organizations. Their combined total exceeds $2.1 billion.

News

CA stem cell agency lauds multibillion-dollar ’47’ deal

A laboratory stem cell researcher uses a laptop in conjunction with a microscope. (Photo: moreimages, via Shutterstock)

A small firm in Menlo Park, Ca., is probably the only company in the nation that is named after the number of a particular human protein. It is a small number too, only 47. But it has large implications for California’s financially strapped state stem cell agency.

News

California’s stem cell agency confronts uncertain future

C. Randal Mills, the 45-year-old CEO of California’s $3 billion stem cell research program, is a man who loves his milestones. A private pilot, he charts his course in the air from one specific point to the next. Three years ago, Mills brought that same sort of navigation to the state stem cell agency.

News

Stem cell agency loses key executive

Synthetic cells, a 3D illustration. (Jurik Peter, via Shutterstock)

The $3 billion California stem cell agency said it is losing one of its top leaders, James Harrison, one of the authors of the measure that created the agency and who most recently is serving as its “unflappable” general counsel.

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