CGS-authored
Three years ago, California voters launched the state on a $3 billion journey involving the origins of life, cutting-edge science and medicine, big business, morality, ethics, religion and politics, not to mention the hopes of millions of people suffering from diseases ranging from diabetes to cancer.
With the passage of Proposition 71 in November 2004, California is now the world's largest source of funding for human embryonic stem cell research - pumping out money this year at an expected rate of about $29,000 an hour, $258 million in all. The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine is set to surpass that figure in 2008 when it will award its largest single round of grants: $227 million for construction of stem cell labs at many of California's major universities and nonprofit research institutions, including possibly the University of California, Davis.
By many measures, the institute is a huge success. Its impact stretches well beyond state boundaries and has stimulated the growth of similar research efforts in six other states and excitement in even more. The agency has established what are widely regarded...