CGS-authored

When the committee looking for a president of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine -- the organization overseeing the state's $3 billion stem cell research initiative -- meets for the first time Monday in San Francisco, it will have to fight its way through a thicket of conflicting interests and an apparent struggle for power.

The person chosen will set the direction for the Institute and determine whether it will be an independent body or the pet of the man who serves as the interim president and as chairman of the Independent Citizen's Oversight Committee -- Robert Klein. Mr. Klein, a real estate developer with an emphasis on affordable housing, also wrote Proposition 71, the ballot initiative that created the program, and put millions of his own money into the campaign. Voters approved the proposition last November.

The Institute will have $3 billion to spend on stem cell research, which could lead to cures for diseases such as Parkinson's and diabetes. The president of the organization could be a leader in the developing field and could make history.

"This would...