State Agency Grants Signal Shift Away from Embryonic Stem Cells

In an April cover story, we looked at the dilemma facing the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), the state agency created through Proposition 71 to fund stem-cell research: Should the landmark agency direct the remainder of its $3 billion in research funds towards "adult" stem cells -- which are closer to clinical applications, albeit for less serious ailments -- or to embryonic stem cells, which offer hope to intractable degenerative diseases such as juvenile diabetes and multiple sclerosis?

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CIRM board member Jeff Sheehy told SF Weekly back in April that this was "an identity issue" for the agency, particularly since it was founded in response to Bush Administration restrictions on embryonic stem-cell research.

"If we are going to say that we're going to work with adult stem cells, we can be in the translational phase and the clinic now," said Sheehy, who is also communications director for UCSF's AIDS Research Institute. "While they're going to be of benefit to a great many people in California, these adult-stem-cell approaches are probably not going to have a big impact on these severe degenerative diseases that really motivated a great number of people to support Prop. 71, like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, spinal-cord injuries."

The latest round of grants announced by CIRM last week says something about where the agency is going on this question. Only four of the 14 grants went to projects using embryonic stem cells, while the rest went to research with adult cells or IPS cells -- mature tissue reprogrammed into embryonic cells' "pluripotent" state.

Totalling $230 million in all, the grants and their heavy emphasis on adult stem cells were described by the New York Times as "a tacit acknowledgement that the promise of human embryonic stem cells is still far in the future" and "a departure from the program's original mission."

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