Stem cell chief's exit is long overdue

Palo Alto developer Robert Klein II led the ballot campaign in 2004 to create California's stem cell research institute. He wrote the initiative, ensuring that only he would chair the institute's oversight board, which is charged with handling $3 billion in public money.

For more than four years, this page has detailed how Klein's all-powerful control has not been in the best interest of either taxpayers or the stem cell agency, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

Now it appears that Klein will step down from CIRM at the end of 2010 – more than 18 months away.

Klein is an impassioned, tenacious advocate for stem cell research, but he is precisely the wrong person to head a government science agency. Chairing a 29-member board that is far too large and rife with conflicts of interest, Klein has operated the institute in a smothering manner, with little regard to transparency or lines of authority.

Since 2005, Klein has run off talented scientists, such as former CIRM President Zach Hall. He has helped direct millions of dollars to contracts for law...