CGS-authored

California has awarded $271 million in grants to build 12 stem cell research centers in the state, even as one of the political rationales for the building program might soon disappear.

The awards, announced here Wednesday, represent the largest chunk of money awarded at one time by California’s taxpayer-backed stem cell program, which is slated to spend about $3 billion over about a decade.

The universities and research institutes that are receiving the money have said they would spend an additional $560 million on the laboratory construction, money they are trying to raise from donations. The resulting total of $831 million would add nearly 800,000 square feet of research space to house 2,200 scientists.

One reason the buildings are needed is that the Bush administration now prohibits federal financing of research using any human embryonic stem cells derived after August 2001, because creating such cells entails the destruction of human embryos. That has meant that work involving newer stem cell lines cannot share even a microscope with a project that is federally financed.

At the University of California, San Francisco...