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California’s Proposition 14 has passed with 51 percent of votes, authorizing the state to issue $5.5 billion in bonds to give the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine a second lease on life. The result was called by the Associated Press yesterday (November 12).
The agency had announced last year it was running out of its first $3 billion round of funding, which was approved by voters through a previous ballot measure in 2004. With the new bonds, the agency will now continue to fill what supporters say is a critical funding gap in stem cell research, and fund ongoing clinical trials and training programs for early-career researchers. Of the new funding, $1.5 billion is to go toward projects developing therapies for neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and dementia.
“We are thrilled” about Proposition 14’s approval, Jonathan Thomas, the chair of CIRM’s governing board, writes in ...
