More than two years after it was approved by voters, California’s $3 billion embryonic stem cell research institute announced its first grants last week, with seven of those grants, totaling nearly $4.4 million, going toward general UCSD projects.
In total, the 29-member Independent Citizens Oversight Committee, the board that governs the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, awarded 72 two-year grants, totaling approximately $45 million, to researchers at 20 universities and nonprofit research institutions across the state. The ICOC voted to name the awards Leon J. Thal Scientific Excellence through Exploration and Development after Thal, the chair of UCSD’s neurosciences department, a world leader in Alzheimer’s disease research and fellow ICOC member who died this month in a plane crash.
The amount awarded in one day was more than the $38 million the National Institutes of Health spent on stem cell research nationwide last year.
The funding represents only a small piece of the $300-million-per-year, decade-long initiative — Proposition 71, also known as the Stem Cell Research and Cures Act — that voters approved in 2004. The bonds have remained frozen by litigation brought on by groups challenging the initiative’s constitutionality.
Consequently, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger approved a $150- million loan to CIRM in August from the state’s general fund on the same day that President George W. Bush vetoed a bill that would have loosened restrictions on federal stem cell funding. The Bush administration has limited federal funding to the 22 cell lines that existed before August 2001 because of moral concerns regarding the destruction of human embryos during research, even in light of evidence demonstrating that the lines are contaminated.
The governor’s loan, which was supplemented by $30 million in philanthropic donations, has allowed CIRM to begin issuing research grants. Previously, the only grants CIRM distributed were $12.1 million in training awards, issued last year to college students learning the basics of stem cell biology.
The grants ranged from $251,000 to $808,000, and were awarded by a group of 15 scientists from outside California and eight members of the ICOC. The members were able to see only numbered grants with the names and institutions removed from the proposals to avoid conflict-of-interest issues. The panel received 231 proposals from 36 institutions and originally expected to award 30 grants, but increased the number because of the scope and quality of the proposals submitted.
The UC system received the majority of the grants, with UC San Francisco receiving eight; UCLA seven; UC Irvine six; UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Riverside and UC Santa Cruz two each; and UC Merced one.
Stanford University, however, was the biggest winner, taking 12 grants, while the University of Southern California received four and San Francisco’s J. David Gladstone Institute received three.
Local private nonprofit research centers also fared well, with the Burnham Institute for Medical Research receiving eight grants, the Salk Institute receiving three and the Scripps Research Institute receiving one.
Many scientists have said they think that stem cells, which are harvested from four-day-old embryos no bigger than the period at the end of a sentence, will yield treatments for a variety of diseases and ailments, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, diabetes and paralysis caused by spinal cord injuries.
“”Today is a day of great hope,”” Schwarzenegger said at CIRM’s meeting in Burlingame, Calif., where the grants were announced.
He also thanked the researchers and doctors who will be using the grants to explore stem cells’ ability to transform into the many different kinds of cell types found in the body, calling them the “”new action heroes.””
The highest-scoring proposal — drawing $612,075 — went to UCSD biology professor Anirvan Gosh for a project to determine if forebrain neurons could be generated from stem cells.
Many neurological disorders, including Alzheimer’s, are characterized by a loss of forebrain neurons.
UCSD pharmacology professor Sylvia Evans will receive $609,999 to study therapies for heart failure; hematology-oncology professor Catriona Jamieson will receive $642,500 to research cancer stem cells; biology professor Cornelis Murre will receive $538,211 to generate lymphocytes; bioengineering professor Shu Chien will receive $638,140 to investigate conditions that control stem cell differentiation; cellular and molecular medicine professor Bing Ren will receive $691,489 to analyze stem cell proteins; and neuroscience professor Binhai Zheng will receive $642,361 to apply stem cells to the development of therapeutic spinal cord injury intervention.
“”UCSD will apply these funds to advance the promising research that we believe will lead to effective new therapies for some of today’s most vexing diseases,”” Chancellor Marye Anne Fox stated in a press release.
The ICOC directed these grants to young researchers and more experienced scientists who are new to stem cell research. The agency will award up to an additional $80 million to seasoned stem cell researchers in March.
However, the California Family Bioethics Council, National Tax Limitation Foundation and the People’s Advocate have vowed to continue fighting Proposition 71’s constitutionality. Alameda Superior Court Judge Bonnie Sabraw dismissed the case last April, but the groups appealed the case, which now rests in the hands of the 1st District Court of Appeals in San Francisco. Attorneys from both sides of the case have said they will take the issue to the California Supreme Court if necessary.
Schwarzenegger said at the CIRM meeting that if the cases still remain unresolved by the end of this year, he would obtain another state loan to allow grant distribution to continue.
