SAN FRANCISCO — Two local research groups were beneficiaries of large grants made this month by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Intel chairman Andy Grove. OneWorld Health, a non-profit pharmaceutical company, received $4.6 million last week from the Gates Foundation, and Intel chairman Grove launched the University of California San Francisco's new Stem Cell Discovery Fund on 8 August with a $5 million matching grant.
The private money will allow UCSF to create new stem cell lines, expanding the pool of cells available to researchers under restrictions imposed by President Bush last August, and will permit OneWorld Health to fund testing of two drugs in development for "orphan" diseases.
Stem cells are a personal interest of Mr. Grove, who serves as national chairman of the UCSF capital campaign, according to a university spokesman. Grove's $5 million contribution to the UCSF Stem Cell Discovery Fund is in the form ...
