Stem Cell Agency Awards $39 Million [California]

California's stem cell research agency awarded the first of a planned $3 billion in grants Friday, announcing that a little less than $39 million would go to UCLA, UC Irvine, Stanford and several other campuses to help set up programs to train scientists.

Although the amount was relatively small, competition among 26 universities and nonprofit institutions was stiff because those selected hope to be at the front of the line for more lucrative public financing to come.

The agency's Independent Citizens' Oversight Committee chose 16 winners.

The agency, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, was set up by Proposition 71, which voters passed last year to fund a program of research using embryonic stem cells to develop potential treatments for disease.

For now, the institute doesn't have any of its own money to give out. Lawsuits filed by anti-tax and antiabortion groups have blocked the state from issuing the bonds that Proposition 71 authorized.

As a result, the agency's chairman, Robert Klein, has been asking private philanthropic groups to fill the void with the expectation that they will be repaid...