Fresh Comments

Jonathan Eisen has posted a comment on the "CHA Example" item below. We have posted a response to his comment. Click on the word "comments" at the end of the item to see the little pearls.

The WSJ, Bile and the Wind

Christopher Thomas Scott, the executive director of the Program on Stem Cells in Society at Stanford, sent the following along. He wrote it in the form of a letter to the editor after reading an op-ed piece on embryonic stem cell research in the Wall Street Journal last week.

"Dear Editors:

"It was familiar a twist in the gut. Robert George and Thomas Berg's "Six Stem Cell Facts" (March 14 Wall Street Journal) provoked the usual response: Should I write 1) a trenchant rejoinder (Six Stem Cell Lies) 2) a carefully crafted counter argument, or 3) lie in wait and pounce in the pages of another newspaper?

"I was up Thursday before dawn. I poured myself a cold, frothy tumbler of bile, and sat down to write.

"Nothing happened.

"I was mystified--George and Berg's essay was an easy target, trotting out old moral and religious tropes.

"It took me a few days to figure it out, but now I understand this odd ennui. Supporters of embryonic stem cell research, including those of us who battle in journals and newspapers, have moved on. Embryonic stem cell research has left the barn, as the saying goes, and now we're getting on with the important stuff--the business of discovery, treatments and cures--what America does better than any other.

"This leaves commentators like George, Berg, and Krauthammer all alone, caterwauling and swinging roundhouses into thin air. The ringside seats are nearly empty. The images of dismemberment (as if an itoa of cells has arms and legs) or Krauthammer's lovely description in sanctioned government reports of "fetuses hanging on meathooks" has become a rhetorical sideshow, better suited for circus barkers. Will they join us at the edge of medicine's most promising frontier, where new, nuanced debates about stem cell therapies are taking shape? Or will they remain behind, shouting into the wind?"

RHA RMI Issues Receive Little Notice in Media

The flap over the $2.6 million California stem cell grant to a Los Angeles enterprise linked to ethical lapses involving a Korean scientist received scant attention today in California newspapers.

Only one story appeared in a newspaper, and one online. Neither contained much new information. Reporter Carl Hall of the San Francisco Chronicle did carry a comment from CHA Health Systems, the parent company for CHA Regenerative Medicine Institute, which was approved for the grant last week by the CIRM Oversight Committee. Hall wrote:

"Jason Booth, a spokesman in Los Angeles for CHA Health Systems, said the research unit is a bona fide California nonprofit whose status was not at issue, and that its 'grant was based on a thorough scientific review that speaks for itself.'"

Rob Waters of Bloomberg.com, who was the first to point out the connection between CHA Health Systems and CHA RMI, also reported on the calls for an investigation. He said a representative of CHA in Korea said the company would respond later.

The Californa stem cell agency said it was in the process of conducting a routine review of all the grants approved last week, which will include an examination of whether each recipient is eligible for the award. Waters quoted the agency as saying that the review could take six weeks.

The Bodyhack blog on Wired.com was the first (on March 17) to pull together the plagiarism allegations involving the head of CHA Health Systems along with other ethical concerns involving CHA and point out that a CHA subsidiary had been approved for the $2.6 million state grant. The California Stem Cell Report on the matter appeared Wednesday night and led to the calls for the investigation.

We have emailed CHA several times seeking a comment on the matter, including a promise to run their comments verbatim. We will do so when we receive a response.

(Editor's note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that the California Stem Cell Report was the first to link the CIRM grant and the ethical concerns involving CHA.)

Fresh Comment Update

Jonathan Eisen has added more commentary on the openness of the CIRM grant system. See "comments" on "Sunburn" below. Lawrence Ebert has more on the issue of "hidden economic interests" in New Jersey research. See "Fresh Comments" below.

As a point of information, we have started these comments advisories in an effort to bring more attention to the contributions of those who take the time to add to this dialogue. These manual comment updates are a bit clunky but we are looking for a sleek, hotsy-totsy way of providing them automatically in a separate space on this page. If you have any suggestions for finding a nifty HTML tool that will do that, send it along. Meanwhile, as general guidance, it would be better to post comments on the items dealing with the subject matter as opposed to posting them on these advisories on comments being posted.

Keep the stuff coming. Thanks to all.

Advisory

The press release by the Center for Genetics and Society concerning the CHA grant has now been posted on its web site. Here is the location.

The CHA Example: How CIRM Decides Who Gets the Big Bucks

The $2.6 million California stem cell grant involving the CHA Regenerative Medicine Institute received a score of 77 from a panel of grant reviewers, although they commented that it "can be easily qualified as overly ambitious."

Approval of the application last week by the Oversight Committee of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine has resulted in calls for an investigation into CHA RMI's nonprofit status and its links to a Korean scientist involved in an international plagiarism case, among other things.

The CHA application first came up for a review last January by a CIRM working group, chaired by Stuart Orkin of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Fourteen other scientists held seats on the group. Seven members of the Oversight Committee sat on the panel. Only one is from Los Angeles, where CHA RMI has its office. It is not known whether she was in attendance when the CHA application was discussed. All of the scientists are from out-of-state.

Meeting privately, the reviewers recommended the CHA application and others for funding. The CHA application was placed in the first tier of grants that were sent on to the Oversight Committee. The scores of the first tier grants ranged from 95 to 66. The reviewers received detailed information on the proposal, including the names of the principal researcher as well as its methodology. Only one reviewer was recused from considering the grant. He was Jeffrey Rothstein of John Hopkins, who works in ALS research, a field that was also targeted by the grant.

Prior to action by the Oversight Committee, the names of all CIRM grant applicants and their institutions are secret except during the private meetings of reviewers, according to CIRM policies. The Oversight Committee is also not told their names during the votes on the reviewers' recommendations. The names of the winning applicants are only disclosed after the vote. The names of the losers will never be disclosed by CIRM.

CIRM says its secrecy is justified for a number of reasons. The agency says it is the traditional way grant applications are handled in the scientific community. It is professionally damaging, CIRM also says, for scientists to be publicly identified as not being able to win grants. It is also damaging to be criticized in public. Maintaining secrecy means that scientists are more likely to propose more ambitious and riskier research than would otherwise be the case. The results of science will be better in the aggregate, thus benefitting the public more than would identifying the applicants and their institutions, CIRM says.

During last week's Oversight Committee meetings when the grants were approved, the 29 members of that panel were not told the names of the applicants or the institutions. They were given a summary that is also available to the public. Individual members were given a list of the grants by number on which they could not vote or participate in the debate. Those lists were withheld from the public at the meeting. Just prior to voting on or discussing an individual grant, a list was read of the committee members who could not participate in the debate. At that point, well-informed members of the audience and probably many members of the committee could identify the actual institutions involved and often the individual researchers. The persons who could not are ones who are not as well informed on stem cell research.

The Oversight Committee voted on the first tier of grants as a block. At that point, no list of recused members was read to the public. Rather each member announced that they were voting in favor of the block with exception of grants where they had a conflict. CIRM's outside counsel recommended the procedure.

Following the vote, CIRM posted a list on the Internet of Oversight Committee members recused from voting on the CHA grant. They are Ricardo Azziz, chair of Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, Jeanne Fontana, a surrogate for John Reed, head of the Burnham Institute in La Jolla, and Richard Murphy, president of the Salk Institute, also in the La Jolla area. Reasons for their recusal were not posted.

(The California Stem Cell Report has argued often against much of the secrecy in the grant-making process for a variety of reasons. We will write more about the issue later.)

In response to a query, Dale Carlson, chief communications officer for CIRM, supplied the following:

"The CIRM grant review and administration process does not end with the ICOC's vote on deciding which applications to approve or not approve for funding. To that point, the review process by the Grants Working Group is focused on scientific merit. After that, there is an internal administrative review by Institute staff to ensure that each approved application is from an institution and principal investigator that meet the eligibility requirements of the specific Request for Applications (RFA); of the requested budget and proposed facilities for the proposed project; and of the institution's mechanisms for complying with our grants administration policy and medical and ethical standards.

"The administrative review process can take several weeks (we are still working on the SEED grants approved in mid-February, for example) and only after it's completed to our satisfaction do Notice of Grant Awards (NGAs) go out to recipient institutions and researchers. Checks follow NGAs.

"The NIH grants review process is similar."

The principal investigator on the CHI RMI grant is Jang-Won Lee. Little information is available about him on the CIRM web site. Carlson said the score of 77 on his grant is an average of each score by each reviewer. Here are the rankings of the grants.

Below is the text of the strengths and weaknesses of his application based on the CIRM reviewers assessment. More information on the grant can be found at this location.

"STRENGTHS: The proposal is well-written and includes preliminary data in pigs and novel methods. The research plan is nicely developed and the PI has the appropriate expertise, at least in animal cloning (less with hESCs), to be successful in this endeavor. Success of the PI in the porcine model adds strength to the plan. A large collection of letters of support provides evidence of enthusiastic collaboration with the PI that will add critically needed expertise to the project. The plan to differentiate and transplant hESC-derived neural cells in a well-established mouse model with experts in the field strengthens the lack of experience with hESC culture (but not derivation) by the rest of the group.

"WEAKNESSES: This is a proposal that can be easily qualified as overly ambitious. The author provides a shopping list of all the experiments that will happen after the ALS SCNT embryos have successfully been established and characterized. This seems premature. The proposal would be successful if the derivation is first done accurately and convincingly to generate a handful of lines that will be available for the community. Preliminary data on enucleation, SCNT and hESC derivation in an animal model should be done before proposing these studies. Specifically, SCNT on frozen oocytes in an animal model should be done before using completely viable, clinically useful human oocytes. The use of frozen oocytes for SCNT has not been established, and is likely to be a significant technical problem for enucleation and whole cell injection. There is no indication of a plan to enucleate the oocytes in the proposal and a clear rationale for using one or both of the methods used previously by the collaborator who developed the method is required. A plan for the derivation of hESCs is also needed along with a rationale for the use of ALS cells for tranplantation studies, rather than normal cells. It also appears that no one on this project has experience with this hESC derivation, or the derivation of any ESC lines.

"The section on clinical grade ESCs is not necessary for the proposal and should be removed. These ESCs are not stable lines that have been shown to be maintained in vitro. In fact, they appear by the literature and preliminary data to be a mixture of hESCs and hESC-derived differentiated populations. The plans to differentiate hESCs for transplantation do not require this intermediate step. It is unfortunate, because the application of novel SCNT techniques is a reasonable way to move the field of SCNT and hESC biology forward. If the rest of the proposal was as well-designed as the pig studies, the score would be very high."

CGS: CIRM Grant Recipient Has 'Shadowed' History

The Center for Genetics and Society today said "troubling questions" have arisen in connection with California's $2.6 million stem cell research grant to CHA RMI, adding another voice to the call for an investigation.

Marcy Darnovsky, associate director of the Oakland-based center, said in a press release:

"The leadership of CHA Health Systems (a Korean firm) has a shadowed recent history, including a lawsuit that alleges the director of its fertility center lied in order to obtain a woman’s eggs, The CIRM needs to live up to its oft-stated commitments to transparency and responsibility by freezing this multi-million dollar award while a thorough investigation is undertaken. If questions cannot be satisfactorily answered, the grant should be rescinded.”

Jesse Reynolds, a policy analyst at CGS and who has attended many CIRM meetings, said:

"Did CHA Health Systems establish this subsidiary in order to pursue California public funding, at a time when South Korea government funds were unavailable because of the Hwang Woo Suk cloning scandal? Given the recent record of unethical conduct in this field, the CIRM should have known to exercise greater scrutiny."

The press release continued:

"The medical director of the CHA Fertility Center is the subject of a lawsuit filed by a woman who says that he lied about the number of eggs that had been collected from her, causing her to continue seeking treatment from him. The CHA Fertility Center and the CHA Regenerative Medicine Institute are located in the same Los Angeles office building.

"'The lawsuit suggests that CHA’s leadership placed a woman at unnecessary risk by misleading her into undergoing repeated cycles of egg retrieval,' Darnovsky said. 'Women’s health advocates have warned about the health risks of egg retrieval, as well as about likely conflicts of interest between fertility doctors conducting egg retrieval and researchers who want the eggs for their experiments.'"

Asked for a comment, Dale Carlson, chief communications officer for CIRM, said CGS' comments were "another uninformed reaction." He used similar language concerning statements by the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumers Rights.

We have asked CHA for comment on these matters and will carry them when we receive them.

The center's press release was not posted on the Internet at the time of this writing. We will carry an advisory when it is posted.

FTCR Calls for Investigation Into California Stem Cell Grant

A California watchdog group has asked the state's stem cell research agency to investigate a Korean-linked organization that the agency approved last week for a $2.6 million grant.

John M. Simpson, stem cell project director for the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumers Rights, said in a press release that CIRM's "secretive awards process let a questionable $2.6 million grant slip by the Oversight Committee without adequate scrutiny."

His comment came today following a report Wednesday on the California Stem Cell Report concerning the recipient of the grant, CHA RMI, and Kwang-Yul Cha, chief executive of the parent company of CHA RMI.

In a letter to the CIRM, Simpson said:

"It is not clear what (CHA RMI's) affiliation is with its corporate parents CHA Medical, CHA Biotech and other corporate for-profit entities. Kwang-Yul Cha is the chief executive of CHA Health Systems, chairman of Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center and director of CHA Regenerative Medicine Institute. Is CHA RMI truly a non-profit institution eligible for funding in this round of grants?"

Simpson also said "serious questions" have been raised about Cha in connection with plagiarism allegations along with a state inquiry into whether he was violating the law by using MD after his name when he is not licensed to practice medicine in California.

Simpson said in the press release:

"We’ve argued that the process should be open and the applicants identified as they do in Connecticut. The stem cell institute refused to let the sun shine in and they got burned as a result."

In response to our query, Dale Carlson, chief communications officer for CIRM, said,

"Simpson appears to be uninformed about the grant review process, here and at other agencies."

We have asked Cha for a comment and will carry it when we receive it.

Simpson also said,

"I'm grateful the California Stem Cell Report first linked the CHA Regenerative Medicine Institute to the problems in its affiliates. Without David Jensen's digging this would likely have slipped by us all."

More on Plagiarism, Prayer and Cha

Patent attorney Lawrence Ebert has posted details concerning Kwang-Yul Cha, whose subsidiary has won a $2.6 million California stem cell grant, and Cha's "anonymous prayer" paper in The Journal of Reproductive Medicine.

Writing on his Ipbiz site, Ebert said:

"One co-author is a convicted felon, one co-author has had his name removed, but JRM won't retract it."

Ebert also had more details on the plagiarism issue from The Scientist magazine.

"Fertility and Sterility has censured the authors(including Cha) of a 2005 article after learning a Korean journal had published the identical paper one year earlier. The Fertility and Sterility authors also left off the name of Jeong-Hwan Kim, who was listed as the first author on the Korean paper and performed the bulk of the research reported in both papers."

The Scientist piece continued:

"The journal will also issue a note in an upcoming issue describing the transgression, and has barred every author listed on the original Fertility and Sterility paper from contributing papers to the journal for three years, editor Alan DeCherney told The Scientist. 'This is a serious punishment.'"

Fresh Comments

Lawrence Ebert has posted a new comment on the CHA item below. "Faye" has posted a comment on "hidden economic interests" on the "Fresh Comment" post from 3/20/07.

CIRM Grant Recipient Tied to Korean Scientist Involved in Plagiarism Controversy

A Los Angeles organization that is scheduled to receive a $2.6 million research grant from the California stem cell agency is a subsidiary of a Korean enterprise headed by a scientist who is enmeshed in an international plagiarism dispute.

The scientist is Kwang-Yul Cha, who also "came under criticism a few years ago for his involvement in a study suggesting that anonymous prayers from strangers might double a woman's chances of fertility," according to the Los Angeles Times.

His firm, CHA Health Systems, is the parent company of CHA Regenerative Medicine Institute (CHA RMI) of Los Angeles, a non-profit organization that last week was awarded the research grant by the Oversight Committee of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. The funds were approved by the 29-member committee with no specific discussion of the CHA grant. The names of the organizations were not disclosed until hours after the vote.

The information about Cha's background was first published in the Los Angeles Times Feb. 18, nearly a month before the grant was approved. The story by Charles Ornstein said Cha, whose firm also owns Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center,

"...is listed as the primary author on a medical paper that appeared in December 2005 in the U.S. medical journal Fertility and Sterility.

"But that paper appears to be nearly a paragraph-for-paragraph, chart-for-chart copy of a junior researcher's doctoral thesis, which appeared in a Korean medical journal nearly two years earlier, according to a Times review of both papers and the findings of a Korean medical society.

"Cha has denied any wrongdoing."

Ornstein continued:

"Cha also appears to be violating state law by using MD after his name on websites and in news releases in California. He is not licensed to practice in the state, records show. His resume says he received his medical training in South Korea.

"'We don't believe it's lawful for him to hold himself out in this manner,' said Candis Cohen, a spokeswoman for the Medical Board of California."

On Feb. 28, Ornstein also reported that Thomas Kim, the medical director of another CHA organization, the CHA Fertility Center in Los Angeles, was under investigation by the state Medical Board "over a patient's allegations that the doctor seduced her into a lengthy sexual relationship and then lied to her about her treatment." Kim's lawyer has denied he did anything wrong and said that it was a consensual personal relationship involving Kim and the woman.

We have queried both CIRM and CHA's organization in Korea for a comment and will carry them when we receive them.

Responding to a query from the California Stem Cell Report, John M. Simpson, stem cell project director for the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumers Rights in Santa Monica, said:

"It strikes me that there are enough doubts about the credibility of the leadership of the CHA Medical Group so as to warrant a serious investigation before any money is transferred to its researchers.

"First, CIRM ought to determine the relationship between the for-profit corporate parent and the non-profit CHA Regenerative Medicine Institute. It's not at all clear that CHA Regenerative Medicine is truly a non-profit organization.

"Second, the CHA Biotech website says that the institute has received approval from the Western Institutional Review Board for stem cell research involving frozen human eggs. Under CIRM rules there needs also to be approval by a SCRO committee -- Stem Cell Review Oversight committee. It's not clear that has happened. It's also important to know the source of the frozen eggs."

"Given the track record of CHA's leadership, I'd say CIRM needs to ask some tough questions and not release funds until there is a satisfactory public explanation of what's going on."

The grant to CHA RMI was part of a package that was voted on last Thursday night as a block. They had been recommended for approval by a group of out-of-state scientists and some members of the Oversight Committee, who together privately reviewed the grants some time ago. But the names of the applicants and their institutions were withheld from other members of the Oversight Committee and the public when they came up for the final vote. The Oversight Committee includes the deans of both the UCLA andUSC medical schools as well as a member of the board of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, where the committee's meeting took place. Other prominent California medical school deans also sit on the Oversight Committee.

The Los Angeles Times carried a brief story on the grants, mentioning CHA by name but with no further background. Both Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and California State Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez hailed the grants generally at a news conference, but did not mention CHA specifically.

The CIRM grants are subject to administrative review before the checks go out. That includes the legal standing of applicant institutions, the status of the principal research investigators, among other things.

Fresh Comment

Jonathan Eisen has just posted a comment on the "Sunburn" item below. Click on "comment" at the end of the Sunburn posting to view Eisen's remarks.

Nature Warns of Sunburn; UC Davis Scientist Warns of Hidden Agendas

Amidst the hoopla about the latest research giveaway by the California stem cell agency, a couple of news items popped up that dealt with openness and conflicts of interests.

Last week Nature magazine editorialized that CIRM was amply open. And on Sunday, the agency itself disputed a Sacramento Bee editorial that suggested CIRM is "on thin legal ice" because it does not require its grant reviewers to publicly disclose their financial interests. But first the Nature editorial, which ironically is not accessible to the general public. It says, among other things,

"Calls for yet more openness may be well intentioned, but they threaten to override the element of confidentiality that is inherent to fair peer review, and to undercut the agency’s mission of supporting cutting-edge research from the best Californian scientists. There comes a point at which yet more sunshine leads to sunburn."

Nature also said that requiring identification of those who do not receive grants

"...would be akin to the state of California publicly releasing information on all the job applications it receives, complete with adverse comments made during the hiring process. "

We could not disagree more. Seeking millions of dollars in state funds with no promise of economic return, which is what the research grants are all about, is fundamentally different than applying for a position as a state park ranger.

Stuart Leavenworth, an associate editor at The Sacramento Bee, noted in an email to the California Stem Cell Report that the magazine's position did not surprise him "given that Nature has steadfastly refused to disclose the conflicts of interest of its authors, unlike other journals." He pointed to statements by the Center in the Public Interest and more than 30 scientists that Nature does not "reliably" disclose its authors' financial ties to drug and biotechnology companies.

The Nature editorial also surfaced on the "egghead" blog at UC Davis.
Jonathan Eisen, a professor at the UC Davis Genome Center, said, in part:

"While I can see (Nature's) points, I am not sure they are the most objective place to look for for ideas on this issue. The question to me is not whether too much sunshine MIGHT cause sunburn it is whether just the risk of sunburn is worth keeping things closed. I think in this case I probably agree that the review of these proposals might be changed if it were an open review system. But as someone who has served on many grant review panels, I know that there are ALL sorts of hidden agendas that play out in the review. If review were completely open, at least these hidden agendas would be exposed to the world. Yes, some reviewers might be too timid in their reviews, but this openness would eliminate so many other problems inherent in anonymous review. This is why there are a few journals out there that now have open review of papers — something I think is certainly worth testing out."

Dale Carlson, chief communications officer for CIRM, wrote the op-ed piece that challenged The Bee's position. He said that grants are not in jeopardy and that two courts have upheld the legality of CIRM's actions. Carlson referred to lawsuits that that have unsuccessfully challenged the constitutionality of the agency.

With all due respect, we suggest that the key issue has not been fully litigated. At the time of the trial cited by Carlson, CIRM had only made a small number of grants. A track record simply did not exist on whether the grant reviewers were making de facto decisions. There is no doubt, however, that the Oversight Committee has final authority on making grants.

The fundamental question about public disclosure of the financial interests of the grant reviewers concerns good public policy and openness. Should the public should be allowed to know the financial interests of those who recommend that millions of public dollars be handed out to scientists? Along with that goes the question of whether the public should be allowed to know the names of persons and institutions seeking millions of dollars in research grants.

Our position is that the interests of the science community come after the interests of the public. Unwarranted secrecy in the grant-making process only feeds suspicion and creates the possibility of insider dealings, which are not likely to be healthy for science or stem cell cures. As Eisen notes above, hidden agendas can often come into play.

(Editor's note: If you are interested in the full text of the Nature editorial, please send us a note at djensen@californiastemcellreport.com.)

Zerhouni to Bush: Nation Better Served Without Research Restrictions

The head of the National Institutes of Health, an appointee of President Bush, today defied his boss and said the president's policy on embryonic stem cell research was ill-serving the nation.

The statement came from Elias Zerhouni and was reported by Angela Zimm and Neil Roland on Bloomberg.com. They covered a Senate hearing on funding for the NIH. They wrote that Zerhouni said:

"The current lines will not be sufficient. It's not possible for me to see how we can sustain the momentum of research."

Zerhouni continued:

"It's clear that American science and the nation will be better served if we have access to more cell lines."

According to Bloomberg, this is the context of the remarks.

"Senator Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, asked Zerhouni, whether lifting the restrictions would have an effect on finding new cures.

"'The answer is yes,' Zerhouni said. The exchange came at a hearing of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education."

Zerhouni could have said the same thing several years ago. But Bush is now a clearly a lame duck and on the ropes with the American public. And Zerhouni has his own future to consider. Being a handmaiden to Bush's stem cell policy is not the best position for someone who may be casting about for a new line of work.

Beyond $131 Million: Looking Ahead at CIRM

You could call it the pipeline and presidency issue. Even before the directors of California's stem cell agency approved an unprecedented $75 million in grants, some of them were worrying about what happens next.

Brian Henderson, dean of the USC medical school, told his fellow members on the CIRM Oversight Committee, "We do not want to congratulate ourselves too much."

CIRM, however, does have something to congratulate itself about, as Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa reminded them during a Friday morning news conference. "Put a smile on your face," he said.

CIRM has pumped out $131 million in grants so far this year, making it clearly the largest single source of embryonic stem cell research funding in the world. More millions will come later this year. And before the end of the year, with a little luck, they will see even bigger bucks flowing in through the sale of state bonds that have been delayed because of litigation.

However, the 22-member staff of the agency has been working extraordinarily long hours. "Heroic" was a word that came up often during last week's two-day meetings to describe the work of the staff. One example that was cited was the case of one staffer, who was up until 4 a.m. readying documents for the first day of the meetings. While that may be a tad exceptional, Oversight Committee members for some time have expressed concern about the workload of the agency.

As Michael Friedman, president of the City of Hope, put it last week, the agency has been sprinting, and "we are in for a marathon."

The "challenges" facing CIRM include the loss of President Zach Hall in June, the search for his successor, the void until the new president comes aboard and the need to fill the pipeline with more grants as well as administering the ones already approved.

Several board members said momentum needs to be maintained to provide opportunities for the new scientists that have been arriving in California to tap CIRM's $3 billion research effort. They urged Hall to fill staff positions as rapidly as possible to maintain the workflow. "Please don't scrimp," Friedman said.

CIRM is not likely to have a new president on board by the time Hall leaves, which will accentuate the normal uncertainty that arises with the arrival of new CEOs, especially in small, new organizations. However, something of a model exists for working through that period. Hall will take a vacation this month and has designated two persons to act in his stead, Arlene Chiu, scientific program director, on scientific matters and Lorraine Hoffman, chief financial officer, on other issues. How they fulfill their responsibilities will be a good test for June and later in the summer.

The 29 members of the Oversight Committee hold an important key to CIRM stability and momentum. They should curb their micro-management urges, some of which are possessed in abundance by some members of the board, and focus on filling the presidency as quickly as possible. Twenty-nine busy fingers in the CIRM pie are likely to leave a pretty mess.

Henderson and the others are right to worry about a letdown, which can easily happen during or following periods of intense effort, which has been the story since January 2005. Avoiding a letdown and leaving a healthy organization may be one of Hall's most important tasks in the next few months. But much of the burden will fall on senior CIRM management, the folks who will ride through the transition. After all, they are the ones who will be left to engineer the giveaway of a piddling $2.8 billion or so over the next 10 years.

Telling Tales and Salvation

It has not exactly been the tales of "1,001 Arabian Nights." But last week we did post our 1,001st item on the California Stem Cell Report.

Scheherezade, the narrator of "The Book of One Thousand and One Nights," spun her stories to avoid being executed by the evil Sultan. As she put it, "Is it possible that by telling these tales, one might indeed save one's self."

However, in the case of the 1,001 stories on the California Stem Cell Report, I am more reminded of the saying about the talking dog. So what if he talks, what does he have to say?

That is a matter for all of you -- our much-appreciated readers -- to determine. Cheers to you all.

Grant Coverage Light, Bloomberg Highlights Korean-linked Award

The announcement of nearly $76 million in embryonic stem cell research grants in California generated modest media attention today – less than last month's giveaway that involved much less money. The presence of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, however, helped push the coverage of February's awards to an exceptional level. Plus they were the first awarded by CIRM.

Few surprises popped up in the papers today. But reporter Rob Waters of Bloomberg.com highlighted the Korean connections of one Los Angeles-based recipient. Waters wrote:

"CHA RMI was awarded a grant of $2.6 million. Along with its sister organization, CHA Stem Cell Institute in Seoul, it's a non-profit unit of CHA Biotech(of Seoul). The Los Angeles unit proposes to use its grant to create stem cell lines using a process known as therapeutic cloning, or somatic cell nuclear transfer.

"The CHA RMI researchers will attempt to create cloned human embryos with the cellular attributes of Lou Gehrig's disease, an incurable neurological disorder. They will try to do this by combining human egg cells whose nucleus has been removed with DNA provided by adults with the disease. The scientists will then isolate and extract stem cells from the embryos.

"'We feel a great responsibility for this project and we will pursue our research with utmost efforts,' Chung Hyung Min, a professor and the director of the project at CHA Stem Cell Institute, said in a telephone interview from Seoul. "It won't be an easy project, but we're striving so that our efforts can contribute to curing Lou Gehrig's disease and many other diseases such as Parkinson's disease."

"CHA Biotech is a for-profit entity set up to coordinate the work of academic researchers and hospital physicians centered on stem cell, gene therapy and regenerative medicine technology, according to its Web site. It's part of CHA Health Systems, also called the CHA Medical Group, which owns or is affiliated with several universities, hospitals and research institutes in Korea and the U.S."

Prop. 71 limits grants to institutions located in California, which CHA RMI appears to be. We are attempting to track down a more detailed definition of the limitation and will post it when it becomes available.

Most reporters focused on the dollars in the grants. But Jim Downing of The Sacramento Bee zeroed in on the researchers and their goals. The first two paragraphs of his story read:

"Mark Zern is trying to figure out how to grow adult human livers, more or less from scratch.

"Alice Tarantal hopes to find a way to regenerate failed kidneys."

Here are links to other stories and press releases issued by recipient institutions. We will carry links to other news releases from recipients as they come to our attention.

Steve Johnson, San Jose Mercury News

Carl Hall, San Francisco Chronicle

Reporter Terri Somers, San Diego Union-Tribune

Mary Engel, Los Angeles Times

Gary Robbins, Orange Country Register

People's Daily Online

UCLA

UC San Diego

UC San Francisco

Burnham Institute

Stanford

Grant Press Release Now on CIRM Web Site

The news release on the CIRM grants is now available on its web site so you don't have fight your way through the formating issues in the item below. Here is the link.

CIRM Press Release on the Latest Grants

The following is the complete press release on the latest grants from CIRM. It should be posted shortly on the CIRM. We are posting it here because of a delay in the posting.

----------

For release: IMMEDIATE Contact: Dale A. Carlson

415/396-9117





$75 MLLION BOOST FOR CALIFORNIA STEM CELL SCIENTISTS



Assembly Speaker says California on the path to cures



State now largest source of funding for embryonic stem cell research



LOS ANGELES, March 16, 2007 – Just a month after approving nearly $45 million for embryonic stem cell research, California’s stem cell agency authorized another $75.7 million in additional funds for established scientists at 12 non-profit and academic institutions.



The 29-member Independent Citizens Oversight Committee (ICOC), governing board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), today approved 29 Comprehensive Research Grants for approximately $74.6 million over four years, to accomplished stem cell investigators at academic and non-profit research centers throughout the state. The grants were selected from 70 applications from researchers at 23 institutions, who sought more than $175 million in CIRM funding.

“This time of the year new life and new hope seem to be everywhere you look,” said Fabian Núñez, Speaker of the California State Assembly. “With these new grants, California is continuing on the path of turning the hope and promise of stem cell research into the reality of therapies and cures for millions of Californians and people across the globe. The California spirit – the perseverance, creativity and resourcefulness that has made us a leader on everything from gold mining in the 19th Century to fighting global warming in this one -- is fully present in our stem cell research teams. With today’s grants California shows we are again blazing the trail.”

Speaker Núñez joined Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Robert N. Klein, chairman of the ICOC, at a press conference to review the latest research grants.

“As of today, California is the largest and most stable source of funding for human embryonic stem cell research in the world,” Klein said. “The scientific projects proposed for our third set of grants are very strong, and it’s clear that there is an abundance of scientific opportunities for the state’s investments. We are off to an extraordinary start towards fulfilling the mandate of 7 million California voters, and the hopes of patients and families worldwide.”

The Comprehensive Grants approved today will support mature, ongoing studies on human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) by scientists with a record of accomplishment in the field. They were designed for investigators with well-developed expertise in hESC research or in a closely-related field to pursue new directions in hESCs based on their current research.

“These grants provide substantial support to a pool of very distinguished researchers in human embryonic stem cell research,” declared Zach W. Hall, Ph.D., CIRM’s President and Chief Scientific Officer. “These grants are larger than the Leon J. Thal SEED grants approved in February and extend over four years rather than two. Accordingly, our reviewers had higher expectations and more rigorous standards for judging this set of applications.

“The ICOC has approved a very well-balanced portfolio of research proposals, including those aimed at understanding stem cell differentiation and identifying new ways of obtaining hESCs, and many that target specific diseases,” Hall said. “Combined with our training and SEED grants, the CIRM is now funding embryonic stem cell research in more than 100 California laboratories.”

“We focused our initial grants on human embryonic stem cells specifically,” Klein said, “because human embryonic stem cell research receives minimal funding from the federal government, and even those funds are restricted to lines of questionable value. Going forward, we will support a diverse range of stem cell research projects. There are a number of California institutions that have strong programs in adult and other stem cells, for example, that are just beginning to build embryonic stem cell capabilities. Many of these institutions may be prominent names in future grant awards. We need them to be fully engaged in this project, if we’re going to achieve our objectives. Fortunately, we have 10 years and $3 billion to build a strong program encompassing all of California’s research institutions.”

Like the Leon J. Thal SEED grants, the Comprehensive Grants will fund a broad range of projects, including:

* A study of how chemical modification of DNA in hESCs impacts nerve formation and the ability of stem cells to repair brain damage caused by stroke (UCLA)



* Development of new ways of deriving hESCs and investigating the special capabilities of newly-derived human cell lines. (UCSF)



* A proposal to develop neural cellular models of Parkinson’s disease and Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS) that could be used to screen chemical libraries for novel drugs and to develop preclinical models of human disease (Salk Institute)



* Building tools to better isolate heart and blood cells from differentiated populations of hESCs (Stanford)



* A proposal to optimize the creation of liver cells for transplantation, and be able to monitor their in-vivo fate non-invasively (UC Davis)



* A study of molecular mechanisms regulating hESC survival, focused on a very specific and promising class of growth factors (UC Irvine)



The ICOC approved Comprehensive Research Grants to the following researchers (Note: the dollar amounts shown are the four-year budgets requested by each applicant and are subject to review and revision by CIRM, prior to the issuance of grant awards):



Application #


Principal Investigator


Institution


Title


Amount

RC1-00100-1


Baker, Dr. Julie C


Stanford University


Functional Genomic Analysis of Chemically Defined Human Embryonic Stem Cells


$2,628,635

RC1-00104-1


Bernstein, Dr. Harold S


University of California, San Francisco


Modeling Myocardial Therapy with Human Embryonic Stem Cells


$2,229,140

RC1-00108-1


Crooks, Dr. Gay Miriam


Children's Hospital of Los Angeles


Regulated Expansion of Lympho-hematopoietic Stem and Progenitor Cells from Human Embryonic Stem Cells (hESC)


$2,551,088

RC1-00110-1


Donovan, Professor Peter


University of California, Irvine


Improved hES Cell Growth and Differentiation


$2,509,438

RC1-00111-1


Fan, Dr. Guoping


University of California, Los Angeles


Epigenetic gene regulation during the differentiation of human embryonic stem cells: Impact on neural repair


$2,516,613

RC1-00113-1


Fisher, Dr. Susan J.


University of California, San Francisco


Constructing a fate map of the human embryo


$2,532,388

RC1-00115-1


Gage, Professor Fred H.


The Salk Institute for Biological Studies


Molecular and Cellular Transitions from ES Cells to Mature Functioning Human Neurons


$2,879,210

RC1-00116-1


Goldstein, Professor Lawrence S. B.


University of California, San Diego


USING HUMAN EMBRYONIC STEM CELLS TO UNDERSTAND AND TO DEVELOP NEW THERAPIES FOR ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE


$2,512,664

RC1-00119-1


Heller, Professor Stefan


Stanford University


Generation of inner ear sensory cells from human ES cells toward a cure for deafness


$2,469,373

RC1-00123-1


Lee, Dr. Jang-Won


CHA Regenerative Medicine Institute


Establishment Of Stem Cell Lines From Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer-Embryos in Humans


$2,556,066

RC1-00124-1


Lee, Dr. Randall James


University of California, San Francisco


Embryonic Stem Cell-Derived Therapies Targeting Cardiac Ischemic Disease


$2,524,617

RC1-00125-1


Lipton, Dr. Stuart A.


Burnham Institute for Medical Research


MEF2C-Directed Neurogenesis From Human Embryonic Stem Cells


$3,035,996

RC1-00131-1


Marsala, Dr. Martin


University of California, San Diego


Spinal ischemic paraplegia: modulation by human embryonic stem cell implant.


$2,445,716

RC1-00132-1


Mercola, Dr. Mark


Burnham Institute for Medical Research


Chemical Genetic Approach to Production of hESC-derived Cardiomyocytes


$3,036,002

RC1-00133-1


Nusse, Dr. Roel


Stanford University


Guiding the developmental program of human embryonic stem cells by isolated Wnt factors


$2,354,820

RC1-00134-1


Palmer, Professor Theo D


Stanford University


Immunology of neural stem cell fate and function


$2,501,125

RC1-00135-1


Pleasure, Dr. Samuel J.


University of California, San Francisco


Human stem cell derived oligodendrocytes for treatment of stroke and MS


$2,566,701

RC1-00137-1


Reijo Pera, Dr. Renee A.


University of California, San Francisco


Human oocyte development for genetic, pharmacological and reprogramming applications


$2,469,104

RC1-00142-1


Srivastava, Dr. Deepak


The J. David Gladstone Institutes


microRNA Regulation of Cardiomyocyte Differentiation from Human Embryonic Stem Cells


$3,164,000

RC1-00144-1


Tarantal, Professor Alice F.


University of California, Davis


Preclinical Model for Labeling, Transplant, and In Vivo Imaging of Differentiated Human Embryonic Stem Cells


$2,257,040

RC1-00148-1


Xu, Yang


University of California, San Diego


Mechanisms to maintain the self-renewal and genetic stability of human embryonic stem cells


$2,570,000

RC1-00149-1


Zack, Dr. Jerome A


University of California, Los Angeles


Human Embryonic Stem Cell Therapeutic Strategies to Target HIV Disease


$2,516,831

RC1-00151-1


Zarins, Dr. Christopher K.


Stanford University


Engineering a Cardiovascular Tissue Graft from Human Embryonic Stem Cells


$2,618,704

RC1-00345-1


Keirstead, Dr. Hans S.


University of California, Irvine


hESC-Derived Motor Neurons For the Treatment of Cervical Spinal Cord Injury


$2,396,932

RC1-00346-1


Kriegstein, Dr. Arnold R.


University of California, San Francisco


Derivation of Inhibitory Nerve Cells from Human Embryonic Stem Cells


$2,507,223

RC1-00347-1


Leavitt, Dr. Andrew D.


University of California, San Francisco


Understanding hESC-based Hematopoiesis for Therapeutic Benefit


$2,566,702

RC1-00353-1


Wallace, Professor Douglas C.


University of California, Irvine


The Dangers of Mitochondrial DNA Heteroplasmy in Stem Cells Created by Therapeutic Cloning


$2,530,000

RC1-00354-1


Weissman, Dr. Irving L


Stanford University


Prospective isolation of hESC-derived hematopoietic and cardiomyocyte stem cells


$2,636,900

RC1-00359-1


Zern, Professor Mark Allen


University of California, Davis


An in vitro and in vivo comparison among three different human hepatic stem cell populations.


$2,504,614





Total $74,587,642



Totals for each institution are listed below:



Institution


Comp Grants


Amount

UC San Francisco


7


$17,395,875

Stanford University


6


$15,209,557

UC San Diego


3


$7,528,380

UC Irvine


3


$7,436,370

Burnham Institute for Medical Research


2


$6,071,998

UCLA


2


$5,033,444

UC Davis


2


$4,761,654

The J. David Gladstone Institutes


1


$3,164,000

Salk Institute for Biological Studies


1


$2,879,210

CHA Regenerative Medicine Institute


1


$2,556,066

Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles


1


$2,551,088

Total


29


$74,587,642





The ICOC also completed its review of the Leon J. Thal SEED Grant applications. Nearly $45 million was approved in February, to 72 scientists at 20 institutions. Today the ICOC approved two additional grants to the following researchers (Note: the dollar amounts shown are the two-year budgets requested by each applicant and are subject to review and revision by CIRM, prior to the issuance of grant awards):



Application #


Principal Investigator


Institution


Title


Amount

RS1-00308-1


Stainier, Dr. Didier Y.R.


University of California, San Francisco


Endodermal differentiation of human ES cells


$635,242

RS1-00247-1


LaFerla, Dr. Frank M.


University of California, Irvine


Development of human ES cell lines as a model system for Alzheimer disease drug discovery


$492,750



Total $1,127,992

The first scientific grants approved under the Stem Cell Research and Cures Act totaled $37.5 million, and were awarded in April 2006, to train 169 pre-doctoral, post-doctoral, and clinical fellows at 16 non-profit and academic research institutions. With today’s decision, the ICOC has now approved more than $158 million for research grants at 23 California institutions:









Institution


Training Grants


SEED Grants


Comp Grants


Grants


Funds (Requested & Awarded)

Stanford University


1


12


6


19


$26,519,988

UC San Francisco


1


9


7


17


$25,796,219

UC San Diego


1


6


3


10


$14,821,287

Burnham Institute

for Medical Research


1


8


2


11


$13,381,881

UC Irvine


1


7


3


11


$13,581,435

UC Los Angeles


1


7


2


10


$12,907,906

UC Davis


1


2


2


5


$8,286,877

The J. Gladstone Institutes


1


3


1


5


$7,920,705

The Salk Institute

for Biological Studies


1


3


1


5


$6,605,126

Children's Hospital of Los Angeles


1


1


1


3


$5,578,107

University of Southern California


1


4





5


$5,405,461

UC Berkeley


1


2





3


$3,446,378

CHA Institute of Regenerative Medicine








1


1


$2,556,066

UC Santa Cruz


1


2





3


$2,132,200

California Institute of Technology


1








1


$2,071,823

The Scripps Research Institute


1


1





2


$1,836,280

UC Santa Barbara


1








1


$1,218,242

UC Riverside





2





2


$1,139,456

Buck Institute for Age Research





1





1


$734,202

Human BioMolecular Research Institute





1





1


$714,654

Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research





1





1


$691,489

UC Merced





1





1


$363,707

City of Hope, National Medical Center





1





1


$357,978

Totals


16


74


29


119


$158,067,467





About CIRM

Governed by the ICOC, CIRM was established in 2004 with the passage of Proposition 71, the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative. The statewide ballot measure, which provided $3 billion in funding for stem cell research at California universities and research institutions, was approved by California voters, and called for the establishment of an entity to make grants and provide loans for stem cell research, research facilities, and other vital research opportunities. For more information, please visit www.cirm.ca.gov.







###

Two SEED Grants Approved

The California stem cell agency Friday approved two SEED grants left over from last month's session. They were were numbers 308 and 247, by Didier Stanier from UC San Francisco and from Frank LaFerla of UC Irvine.

CIRM has prepared a press release on the awards that should be posted shortly on its web site, www.cirm.ca.gov.