Aggregated News
A prominent member of the governing board for California's stem cell agency may have violated state conflict-of-interest rules last summer when he tried to reverse a decision rejecting a grant proposal by a scientist who works for him at the Burnham Institute of Medical Research in La Jolla (San Diego County).
The miscue has prompted calls for Burnham Institute chief executive Dr. John Reed to resign from the Independent Citizens Oversight Committee, the board that governs the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
"If indeed Dr. Reed has violated the law, then I think he ought to consider resigning," said Jeff Sheehy, a colleague of Reed's on the oversight committee. Sheehy is a spokesman for the UCSF AIDS Research Institute, but serves on the governing board solely as a citizen representative for patients.
"We need to resolve this before questions are raised about the integrity of our processes," he added.
On Aug. 2, Reed wrote a seven-page letter to Arlene Chiu, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine's chief scientific officer, appealing the rejection of a $638,000 grant that would have gone...