SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) -- More than three years after California voters passed a major bond to fund stem cell research, the construction of a dozen research laboratories around the state could finally win approval Wednesday.
Stanford, UCSF, the Buck Institute for Age Research in Novato and the Berkeley Stem Cell Center are among the dozen projects vying for about $800 million in grant money from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine to build state-of-the-art labs throughout the region.
In all, Proposition 71 charged the Institute with dispersing $3 billion in research money. But since its passage in 2004, much of that money has been mired in lawsuits.
“Certainly the lawsuits didn't help, but I don't think it would be fair to say the lawsuits have delayed any clinical treatments,” said law professor Hank Greely, who teaches medical ethics at Stanford University where the largest such facility will likely be.
He said the new field of pleuripotent stem cells, those taken from skins cells rather than embryos, would probably quell the concerns some have about such research. Some of the lawsuits, however, have challenged the mechanisms the 28-member board uses to distribute all that bond money rather than the premise of stem cell research itself.
(jro)
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KCBS's Tim Ryan reports
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