The California stem cell agency this morning awarded $1 million to three researchers for work aimed at battling the coronavirus, which has taken more than 1,500 lives in California and nearly 45,000 nationally.
The grants are the first coronavirus research to be funded by the agency, formally known as the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). Maria Millan, CEO and president of CIRM, said in a news release,
“We are in the midst of very challenging times where there is not yet an approved treatment for COVID-19. In response to this, CIRM launched and executed an emergency COVID-19 funding program, which was made possible by our board, patient advocates, California scientists, external scientific expert reviewers and our dedicated team."
Millan cited one application in particular. She said,
“With CIRM funding, the City of Hope COVID-19 Coordination program will tap into CIRM’s network of researchers, physicians, and our Alpha Clinics to deliver this treatment to patients in need. It will also serve the critical role of gathering important scientific data about the plasma, safety, and clinical data from treated patients.”
The City of Hope application received the most funding in today's round, $749,999. It went to a team led by John Zaia.
The proposed research would involve development of a program in California to identify potential blood plasma donors who could take part in a Covid-19 treatment program. A summary of the reviewers' comments on the Zaia application (Clin2dovid19-117) said,
“This will help develop a new screening tool for the California public health arsenal by identifying
what patient and (plasma) donor factors predict clinical benefit.”
The other two awards went to Gay Crooks of UCLA, $150,000, (Disc2covid19-11817) and Brigitte Gomperts, also of UCLA, $149,998 (Disc2covid19-11764).
Crooks is seeking to enhance the ability to generate specialized immune cells in the lab and use them to discover viral antigens that have the highest potentcy for vaccines.
Gomperts is aiming identifying a federally approved lead compound that could be repurposed for Covid-19 infection.
CIRM's out-of-state reviewers had questions or concerns about each proposal, which can be found in the summaries of reviewer comments. Zaia wrote a letter dealing with some of the reviewer comments, noting that the application was prepared on a short timeline and more work had answered some of the key questions.
CIRM directors gave higher prior to plasma applications that had strong plans for "outreach and study participation by
under-served and disproportionately affected populations." Zaia's three-page letter devoted full page to an outline of that effort. Other applicants did not submit a letter to the CIRM board.
Nine applications were rejected by reviewers, whose decisions are nearly invariably rubber-stamped by the board. The board continued that longstanding tradition today.
CIRM has speeded up its normal processes to gather applications and act on them. Winners are expected to begin work 30 days from today. "Deliverables" are expected in six months.
The applications considered today were among 19 submitted April 7, the first deadline for the $5 million round. The seven not reviewed did not meet the eligibility criteria. Sixteen more applications were received last Tuesday. The next deadline for applications is May 5.
Directors expect to act in the middle of next month on more applications.
Backers of a $5.5 billion stem cell research proposal this week dodged past another critical, but self-imposed deadline for placing the measure before California voters. They eliminated it.
It was the fourth deadline that the campaign has either missed or eliminated. The move came as the campaign itself has noted.
"Time is running out."
The ballot initiative -- if it makes the fall ballot and is approved by voters -- would save the state stem cell agency from financial extinction. Originally funded in 2004 with $3 billion in borrowed state money, the agency is expected to be down to its last $26 million by the end of the day today. Formally known as the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), the agency is expected to award $1.0 million this morning for Covid-19 research.
The campaign is seeking 950,000 signatures of registered voters to qualify its initiative for the ballot. As of early this month, it said it had 915,000 but has remained mum since then on the number of signatures it has gathered.
Legally, the measure needs 623,212 signatures of registered voters. Typically, however, a high percentage of signatures collected for initiatives are disqualified, sometimes as high as 50 percent.
State election officials recommend that the signature petitions be submitted to election officials in 58 counties by April 21 to allow officials to perform the time-consuming work of verifying hundreds of thousands of signature. County election offices, however, are hard hit by stay-at-home, Covid-19 restrictions affecting their operations. If the verification work is not completed by June 15, the initiative will not be placed on the ballot.
The campaign has laid out its changing deadlines on a web page exhorting supporters to engage in an unusual Internet and mail-in petition effort. Earlier this week, after the campaign missed its third deadline, wording on the page was changed to remove a specific date. As of this writing, the latest "deadline" exhortation said,
"The campaign must gather the last 35,000 signatures through mail-in submissions ASAP."
On Wednesday, the campaign told the California Stem Cell Report it would be submitting petitions to county officials "in the next two weeks." The campaign did not respond this morning by the time of this writing to questions about the signature-gathering effort. However, one Santa Barbara resident told us that he received a petition packet this morning in standard postal mail from the campaign asking him to sign the petition and return it to the campaign.
(As this item was being posted, the campaign emailed a response concerning the status of its signature-gathering. However, the statement only repeated what the campaign said days earlier and did not contain any new information.)
The California stem cell agency is moving with dispatch to approve millions of dollars for stem-cell related research that would assist in the battle to fend off Covid-19 and ease the coronavirus crisis.
Meeting behind closed doors yesterday, the agency's reviewers evaluated 12 applications seeking $2.7 million in total funding, including one proposal at a clinical stage. The proposals were received about two weeks ago and were the first in the agency's special Covid-19s round.
It is standard practice for the reviewers to meet privately when considering applications.
The reviewers' decisions, still undisclosed, are expected to be ratified by the agency's governing board on Friday. The researchers are expected to be ready to begin work 30 days later.
Also yesterday, the agency received 16 more applications in the $5 million, rolling, coronavirus round. Four involved clinical applications. Three came from businesses and the rest from non-profits, including academic institutions.
The board's meeting is open to the public via the Internet. Instructions are available on the agenda of the meeting, which begins at 11 a.m. PDT.
Backers of a $5.5 billion, California stem cell research proposal this morning once again missed their self-imposed, but important deadline for qualifying the measure for the ballot this fall in hopes of saving the financial life of the state stem cell agency.
It was the third time that the ballot initiative campaign has missed its own deadlines for gathering signatures as time is running out. The first deadline was April 11. The second deadline was April 18. The third deadline was April 21 (yesterday). The next deadline is April 23 (tomorrow).
Yesterday was also the deadline recommended by state election officials for submitting the signatures to all of California's 58 counties. The state's recommendation is not a legal cutoff, but appears aimed at ensuring enough time exists to complete the lengthy certification process for the November ballot.
The proposed ballot initiative would refinance the state stem cell agency, known formally as the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). It is running out of its original $3 billion and is expected to begin closing its doors next fall.
The campaign, which is independent of the agency, had little to say about its signature-gathering problems. The California Stem Cell Report this morning asked the campaign how many signatures it has on hand. Sarah Melbostad, a spokeswoman for the campaign, replied:
"They are still in the process of counting them but we will let you know as soon as we have an updated number to share."
It was not clear whether the campaign actually knows how many signatures it currently has or whether, on the other hand, it has an actual number but is simply not releasing it publicly. The campaign did not respond to a question this morning on that matter.
Several weeks ago, the campaign said it had 915,000 signatures. That was when it set its April 11 deadline to secure 35,000 more. It needs only 623,212 to qualify for the ballot, but many signatures are disqualified as elections official in each county checks to see whether the signatures represent actual registered voters.
Melbostad said,
"We’re continuing to get petitions in the mail every day from our patient advocacy-driven and direct-mail signature gathering efforts. The campaign is planning to submit signatures to the counties in the next two weeks to ensure that the counties and the state have sufficient time to count and verify signatures for the November ballot."
If election officials have not certified the necessary signatures by June 15, the stem cell measure will not appear on the ballot. The certification process can be prolonged and likely more so under the difficult conditions imposed by the coronavirus crisis.
Backers of a $5.5 billion stem cell research proposal in California today have once again missed a self-imposed, but critical deadline as they continue to struggle with securing enough signatures to place the measure on the November ballot.
The campaign's website this morning listed what is now its third deadline for gathering the signatures of 950,000 voters. Previously, the campaign had set an April 11 deadline and then an April 18 deadline. The latest deadline is tomorrow (April 21). The rolling extensions do not augur well for its "unprecedented" attempt to collect signatures via a combined online and mail-in effort.
In response to questions from the California Stem Cell Report, Sarah Melbostad, a spokeswoman for the campaign, declined to elaborate on the campaign's progress or lack of it beyond a statement she released on Friday.
The questions ranged from just how many signatures the campaign currently has in hand to when they might be presented to election officials. (Here is a link to the text of all the questions.)
The campaign's ballot initiative is aimed at staving off the financial demise of California's stem cell agency, which has all but run out of the $3 billion that it was provided by voters in 2004, also through a ballot initiative. Known formally as the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), the agency has no other significant funding source than state-issued bonds.
The coronavirus crisis has blocked the usual method of gathering of ballot initiative signatures at shopping malls and other public locations. The campaign said earlier it needed another 35,000 signatures to hit its goal of 950,000. The legal requirement is only 623,212 but many signatures are disqualified as invalid, sometimes as high as 50 percent.
Another obstacle involves officials in the state's 58 counties, who must certify the signatures. Most, if not all, are short-staffed because of the coronavirus and/or must provide a working environment that is likely to slow the signature count. If the count is not completed by June 15, the stem cell measure will not be on the November ballot and the agency will begin closing its doors.
