The folks who control state stem cell research funding in California are shifting their project priorities. Board members with the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, or CIRM, voted in late May to focus future grant priorities more on clinical development, with less attention given to basic research and the infrastructure-building that comes with it.
As Nature reports, the change amounts to an increased focus on generating results. CIRM set a strategic plan for the next 5 years to have at least 10 stem cell treatments in early clinical trials, and 20 CIRM-funded programs getting outside funding to advance the compounds in the clinic. CIRM funds run out around 2017 (though plans call for seeking some outside funding). An initial goal is to have two programs set for U.S. clinical trials by July 2013, according to the story. In short, securing tangible results, or at least progress, is a big goal now.
Basic research projects can still obtain grants, Nature explains, but the focus on development research and prepping stem-cell based treatments for the clinics will now draw a much larger proportion of the money going forward, the board decided, in order to promote greater focus on advancing programs.
In the previous 5 years, about half of CIRM's $1.3 billion in grants funded the construction of new research operations and also paid for training and career development, according to the story. But development research and clinical trial preparations will attract about three fifths of the $840 million CIRM will award over the next five years, the article notes. (The difference goes to translational and basic research.)
Reinforcing the new guidelines, CIRM also announced another round of grants--$69 million, all for translational research.
Researcher Deepak Srivastava from the Gladstone Institute in San Francisco told Nature that the funding shift makes sense as "a natural evolution of the institution." He received a $6.3 million grant from the new batch of translational research awards.
- read the Nature story