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California's Stem Cell Program Is Hobbled but Staying the Course

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By ANDREW POLLACK
Published: December 10, 2005
LOS ANGELES, Dec. 9 - After nearly an entire morning of sometimes heated debate the other day, the board overseeing California's $3 billion stem cell research institute took action. It asked the organization's president to draw up a plan for how to draw up a strategic plan.

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Jamie Rector for The New York Times
Embryonic stem cells might one day be used to generate replacement tissue for damaged organs and treat numerous diseases.


Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images
Rudy Gonzales does research on human embryonic stem cells at the Burnham Institute in La Jolla, Calif.
That is the way it has been going lately for the state's closely watched foray into the frontiers of medical science. More than a year after 59 percent of Californians approved an ambitious program to harness human embryonic stem cells to treat diseases, not a single dollar has yet been spent on research.

Instead, the effort has been hobbled by litigation that has kept the project from raising money. It has been second-guessed by public interest groups and legislators. And it has been consumed by the bureaucratic minutiae required to set up rules for administering grants. While much progress has been made, the delays and sheer magnitude of the work involved have frustrated even some of the project's champions.

"I liken it to the Iraq thinking - we won the war and didn't know what to do afterward," said Paul Berg, a Nobel laureate from Stanford University who fills in on the institute's board when Stanford's medical school dean cannot attend.

What happens in California matters to the nation because the $3 billion to be spent on mainly embryonic stem cell research - $300 million annually for 10 years - is expected to dwarf funding from the federal government and from any other state.

Whether stem cells fulfill their potential for medical breakthroughs, and whether the United States can stay competitive in a new branch of biotechnology, could depend on California. And California's experience could serve as an example of what to do - or what to avoid - for other states trying to set up stem cell programs. Those include Connecticut, Illinois and New Jersey. And in Florida, an effort is under way to promote a ballot initiative.

To be sure the task at hand, often likened to setting up a state version of the National Institutes of Health, is formidable. And many of the rules and committees needed are now in place. Ultimately, backers of the effort say, a delay of half a year or even a year in a long-term scientific endeavor would not make much difference.

"I have a mentor whose slogan is 'nothing great is easy,' and I think about that all the time," said Joan Samuelson.

She is a member of the institute's board and an advocate for people with Parkinson's disease, a condition that she has and which is seen as a promising target for stem cell therapy. "Anything so important and so public is going to have a Greek chorus - the naysayers, whiners and complainers. We just have to stay the course."

Still, there is a danger of a taxpayer revolt if promises made during the campaign in 2004 and in the immediate afterglow of the ballot victory are not upheld. Leaders of the initiative said then that they hoped to begin awarding the first research grants as early as last May. The project leaders are also backpedaling somewhat on projections made during the campaign that the state would reap sizable royalties from discoveries made with taxpayer money.

"They are engaged in expectation management, both financial and scientific," said Jesse Reynolds of the nonprofit Center for Genetics and Society, which supports stem cell research but has been a frequent critic of the California institute.

The delays could also threaten the allure of California as a magnet for stem cell scientists. A husband-wife team of geneticists from the National Cancer Institute recently decided to move to Singapore instead of Stanford because of the uncertainty surrounding the stem cell program, a decision first reported by The San Jose Mercury News.

Several scientists in California and elsewhere said in interviews that the state was still attractive, though perhaps a bit less than before.

The stem cell initiative, Proposition 71, was an effort to circumvent federal restrictions on research involving human embryonic stem cells.