Calif. stem cell grants, conflicts

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) announced 22 New Faculty Awards yesterday (Dec 12) while releasing the names of five institutions from which applications were rejected for apparent conflicts of interest. The grants, awarded to young researchers at institutions throughout the state, total more than $54 million, bringing the amount of research dollars awarded by California's stem cell agency to $260 million since its 2004 inception. The institute confirmed it had reject

Written byBob Grant
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The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) announced 22 New Faculty Awards yesterday (Dec 12) while releasing the names of five institutions from which applications were rejected for apparent conflicts of interest. The grants, awarded to young researchers at institutions throughout the state, total more than $54 million, bringing the amount of research dollars awarded by California's stem cell agency to $260 million since its 2004 inception. The institute confirmed it had rejected applications from the University of California, San Francisco, UC San Diego, UCLA, and the University of Southern California. News linkurl:reports,;http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/07/BAOTTQ0JO.DTL&feed=rss.bayarea including linkurl:ours,;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/53978/ identified these schools previously, but the CIRM board verified the names of the institutions at a meeting to announce the award winners, yesterday at UCLA. linkurl:Richard Murphy,;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/53480/ CIRM's interim president, said at the meeting that, "These were innocent, inadvertent mistakes," according to a linkurl:report;http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/12/13/business/news/13_05_3512_12_07.txt in the __North County Times__, a California newspaper. The CIRM board named the Burnham Institute for Medical Research as the fifth organizations from which a New Faculty Award application was rejected. Recently, John Reed, CEO of the Burnham Institute and CIRM board member, has been linkurl:criticized;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/53971/ for attempting to overturn a CIRM decision not to award a Burnham researcher a $638,000 SEED grant. On Monday, California's Fair Political Practices Commission announced that it would linkurl:investigate;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/53983/ the incident. Reed did not participate in yesterday's announcement of the New Faulty Award winners as he has linkurl:said;http://www.cirm.ca.gov/press/pdf/2007/12-11-07.pdf he will not participate in CIRM board activities while he is being investigated.
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Meet the Author

  • From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.

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