California stem cell agency concocts recipe for relevance

With California lawmakers facing a daunting economic challenge, the state's groundbreaking stem cell agency has adopted a simple approach to staying relevant. Rather than finance only blue-sky stem cell research work, Executive Director Alan Trounson wants to support programs that have a shot at near-term clinical success.

That approach helped prompt approval of an $18 million grant to back research into a new approach to curing neuroblastoma. The researchers targeted tumors with specialized neural stem cells that could quickly be made toxic. And the agency has other plans to finance programs that are still too risky for venture investors but too far along commercially to warrant federal research grants.

"If we went 10 years and had no clinical treatments, it would be a failure," Trounson tells the Los Angeles Times. "We need to demonstrate that we are starting a whole new medical revolution."

- read the story from the Los Angeles Times

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