Stanford University is seeking $3.6 million from the California stem cell agency for a training grant to support 16 scientists doing research in adult or embryonic stem cells.
Oddly this is information that CIRM, a publicly financed agency, wants to keep secret. And it is more information about Stanford's proposed program than the University of California, another public agency, is willing to disclose about its similar grant applications.
According to an article by Amy Adams in the "Stanford Report," a university publication, "The grant would provide roughly $1.2 million per year for three years to support the career development of six graduate students, five postdoctoral fellows and five research fellows. These CIRM scholars will be culled from departments across campus including those in the medical school, engineering, the humanities and other areas."
"This is truly a cross-disciplinary effort," said Margaret Fuller, the Reed-Hodgson Professor in Human Biology and Professor of Genetics, who helped write and submit the training grant.
"The trainees at Stanford would participate in all coursework and activities required by their departments as well as take required courses in stem cell biology, disease mechanisms and ethics. They would also attend a weekly seminar series," Adams wrote.
"'The goal,' Fuller explained, 'is for trainees to become experts in stem cell biology and become interested in and informed about human disease.'
"The submitted grant is also a first for Stanford's recently formed Program in Regenerative Medicine, which pulls together faculty interested in regenerative medicine research from across the Stanford campus. One goal for the program is to help coordinate Stanford's efforts to receive CIRM grants.
"The program is under the direction of the medical school's Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine."
Readers can draw their own conclusions about whether the information disclosed by Stanford is so sensitive that it should be secret, as argued by CIRM and the University of California.
For more on this subject see the "secrecy" item on this blog Aug. 17.
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