Creating Critical Mass at a California Stem Cell Consortium

News about the California stem cell agency is dominated by such matters as $70 million Alpha stem cell rounds and clinical trials but other significant activities occur below that high level surface.

One such event is the creation of a state-of-the-art imaging facility at the Sanford Consortium in the San Diego, a facility that was built with the help of a $43 million award from the stem cell agency.

According to Terri Somers, a spokeswoman for the imaging facility,

“It is the only commercial location within California where these high-powered imaging modalities are available to researchers under one roof, along with pharmacology expertise and a deep reference library.”

The facility was opened last fall by Molecular Imaging, Inc., of Ann Arbor, Mich. While it provides services to the stem cell researchers at the consortium, its services are also available to researchers throughout the state, both private and academic.

Edward Holmes, president of the Sanford Consortium, said in a statement,

“We believe that in vivo imaging will play a critical role in tracking the effects of stem cells, and accelerate first-of-their-kind therapies to treat and cure some of the world’s most debilitating diseases.”

The facility includes one of the world’s most powerful MRIs, a PET, SPECT, CT, ultrasound and other molecular imaging technologies. It additionally provides as access to hundreds of disease models and a decades-deep expertise in pharmacology, according to the company.

Somers said,

“These technologies have been developed and leveraged in academic settings. Some global pharmaceutical companies have embraced the technologies as well, creating core-imaging facilities. However, drug companies don’t have this capacity on all their campuses, and none are in Southern California, making access for researchers here problematic.”

With the facility at Sanford, these services are more readily available to cash-strapped biotech companies on the entire West Coast.

Backers of the stem cell agency argue that one of its benefits has been to help build the critical mass in California that is necessary to support and attract stem cell research. The addition of the Molecular Imaging Center at the Sanford Consortium appears to be part that continuum. 

Duane Roth: Ecumenical Innovator for San Diego and Biotech

The Xconomy news service today carried a sterling look at the contributions that Duane Roth, co-vice chairman of the California stem cell agency, made before his untimely death as the result of a bicycle accident.

Reporter Bruce Bigelow pulled together a host of comments concerning Roth's involvement in the San Diego community, ranging from biotech to action sports companies. The headline on the piece read, “The Connector Who Wired up a Regional Innovation Economy.”

At the time of his death at the age of 63, Roth was CEO of Connect, a nonprofit organization that supported technology and innovation and one that he was credited with reviving. Bigelow also wrote,

“Once California voters approved a 2004 ballot proposition that authorized the issuance of $3 billion in grants for stem cell R&D, (Mary) Walshok (associate vice chancellor for public programs at UC San Diego) said Roth also played a key role in bringing together UCSD, Scripps, Salk, and Sanford-Burnham to create the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine. In fact, Walshok doubts whether anyone but Duane Roth could have brought the four major research centers together.”

Another speaker at the memorial services Friday attended by about 1,000 persons was Bill Walton, the former UCLA and NBA great, who grew up in San Diego.

Bigelow wrote,

“Walton, the NBA Hall of Famer who has led San Diego Sports Innovators as a division of Connect since 2010, said Roth became a business mentor to him. In his comments Friday afternoon, Walton said Roth inspired him to be a better person, and he counted Roth among the people who had the biggest influence on his life—a list that included his own father, UCLA coach John Wooden, sportscaster Chick Hearn, author David Halberstam, and Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead.”

Bigelow described Roth as an ecumenical and pragmatic advocate for innovation who could work with persons who did not always agree with him on all issues. He was a conservative and active Republican, but his co-vice chair at at the stem cell agency, Art Torres, former chairman of the state Democratic Party, on more than one occasion has lauded Roth's ability to work together.

Bigelow wrote about similar remarks Friday by Don Rosenberg, an executive vice president and general counsel at Qualcomm.

“'Duane and I were as different as two people can be,' Rosenberg said during his eulogy at the Church of the Immaculata. 'Duane was born in Iowa, baptized in the Mennonite church, a Republican. And me, raised in Brooklyn, Jewish, a Democrat. We quickly learned we had more in common. We were kindred spirits. We liked the same things: Bikes, biking, cars, and people.'”