Editorial: More Conflicts Come to Light at Stem Cell Institute
By Editorial,
The Sacramento Bee
| 05. 25. 2013
With a new chairman, Jonathan Thomas, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine claims it has turned a page. Thomas has vowed to be aggressive in avoiding conflicts in dispersing millions of public dollars for stem cell research.
Yet serious conflicts continue to be revealed involving CIRM. The latest one throws into question a $20 million grant awarded last year to StemCells Inc., a company that wants to transplant neural stem cells to treat Alzheimer's disease.
The institute's oversight board approved the award in September, following a lobbying effort by Robert Klein, a former chairman of the oversight board who authored Proposition 71, the initiative that created the stem cell institute. As part of that effort, Klein last year donated $21,000 to CIRM so it could send six of its in-house science officers to a conference in Japan, where Klein had special access to them.
Prior to this lobbying campaign, the institute's outside scientific reviewers recommended twice against awarding the money to StemCells Inc. Yet following Klein's efforts, the oversight board overruled them, agreeing on a 7-5 vote to approve the...
Related Articles
By Grace Won, KQED [with CGS' Katie Hasson] | 12.02.2025
In the U.S., it’s illegal to edit genes in human embryos with the intention of creating a genetically engineered baby. But according to the Wall Street Journal, Bay Area startups are focused on just that. It wouldn’t be the first...
Several recent Biopolitical Times posts (1, 2, 3, 4) have called attention to the alarmingly rapid commercialization of “designer baby” technologies: polygenic embryo screening (especially its use to purportedly screen for traits like intelligence), in vitro gametogenesis (lab-made eggs and sperm), and heritable genome editing (also termed embryo editing or reproductive gene editing). Those three, together with artificial wombs, have been dubbed the “Gattaca stack” by Brian Armstrong, CEO of the cryptocurrency company...
Alice Wong, founder of the Disability Visibility Project, MacArthur Genius, liberationist, storyteller, writer, and friend of CGS, died on November 14. Alice shone a bright light on pervasive ableism in our society. She articulated how people with disabilities are limited not by an inability to do things but by systemic segregation and discrimination, the de-prioritization of accessibility, and the devaluation of their lives.
We at CGS learned so much from Alice about disability justice, which goes beyond rights...
By Adam Feuerstein, Stat | 11.20.2025
The Food and Drug Administration was more than likely correct to reject Biohaven Pharmaceuticals’ treatment for spinocerebellar ataxia, a rare and debilitating neurodegenerative disease. At the very least, the decision announced Tuesday night was not a surprise to anyone paying attention. Approval...
