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Updated Monday, December 25, 2006 State's stem cell initiative already paying dividends Daily Breeze editorial Two years into the great California stem-cell adventure, here's everything curious taxpayers need to know about their $3 billion investment: It's working. Prominent researchers continue to flock to California. Confidence in the endeavor is so high that grants and gifts from private sources to California researchers have totaled more than $200 million so far. The feeble lawsuit challenging the program's legality should be history before June. And regulations are in place to govern the state agency in charge of distributing the $3 billion in grants, the first of which should be awarded in a matter of weeks. Given the nature of scientific research, it will take well over a decade to fully evaluate the state's stem-cell experiment. But it's already clear that, thanks to California voters, the United States is poised to become a world leader in one of the most promising areas of medical research today. That was not the case before Proposition 71 was passed in November 2004. The stem-cell agency, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, is expected to hand out about $300 million in grants annually for the next 10 years. It would have started by now, but a lawsuit blocked the state from selling the bonds voters authorized. Perhaps it's just as well. The institute quickly received a whopping 232 grant applications to evaluate. The delay has allowed the program time to establish a strong strategic plan with guidelines to prioritize the applications. As it prepares to hand out as many as 30 research grants in February, voters should feel confident that their money will be well spent. ... Nearly every major university in California doing stem-cell research has been successful in raising funds from other sources since Proposition 71 passed. In the Bay Area, the University of California, San Francisco, received a $16 million donation from Ray and Dagmar Dolby earlier this year, and the university has more than 60 labs conducting stem-cell research. Stanford University has received more than $24 million from various sources, and the University of California-Berkeley, received $40 million last year. ... The stem-cell institute still faces major challenges in 2007, the most prominent being the need to replace Zach Hall as its president and top scientist. Hall, 69, announced earlier this month that he would leave by mid-2007. ... He will be difficult to replace. However, we hope his successor will re-visit the institute's policy on transparency to shore up public trust. At a minimum, members of its working groups evaluating grant applications should be required to publicly disclose any conflicts of interests. California's stem-cell initiative is one of the boldest public endeavors since the United States sent astronauts to the moon. Now every small step the state's medical researchers take can bring us closer to the giant leap of curing some of humankind's worst diseases. -- San Jose Mercury News ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn