Christopher Thomas Scott: State stem cell program facing tough times ahead

It's been a rocky start for the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and now the departure of its top scientist illustrates the difficulty it has had coming to terms with issues of politics, compensation and governance.

Voters approved Proposition 71 in 2004, creating the institute and authorizing it to pump nearly $300 million a year in bond money into the state's research laboratories.

The institute first had to break free of two years of lawsuits challenging its constitutionality. Then in April, President Zach Hall abruptly announced his resignation after a stormy meeting with the group that oversees the agency, the Independent Citizens Oversight Committee. The news was a surprise: The institute seemed to have finally found its footing, announcing the winners of a round of large research grants.

Last week, the other shoe dropped: Arlene Chiu, the top scientific officer responsible for running the institute's grants operation, resigned.

In August, the institute named an interim leader, Richard Murphy, former president of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla and a former member of the Independent Citizens Oversight Committee. Murphy's appointment as president begins Saturday and will last six months -- a short time in which to address five major challenges. Those challenges include:

• Staffing. Murphy should tend to the needs of the senior executives as the first priority. They are the engine that makes things go. The institute must quickly find a replacement for Chiu and double its staff; put in place efficient mechanisms for research and ethical oversight; generate new rounds of proposals, renewals and reviews; and distribute funds quickly. Comparable-size federal institutes review fewer proposals with many more staff.

CIRM has had to build things from scratch with limited operating capital and a skeleton crew. Micromanagement or bureaucratic governing schemes won't work here.

Murphy must manage this against a backdrop of transparency, the politics of the citizens committee and the steely gaze of Sacramento.

• Control. It's a tightrope: He should demand more control over the institute's budget line items and governance decisions while listening to the strong personalities on the citizens committee and in Sacramento.

The Red Cross collapsed under the weight of its hydra-headed board; the difficult issues centered on control and the dysfunction of consensus management. CIRM faces some of the same problems. Paying attention to the needs of the major players and being flexible to alternate views will help him balance control.

• The K-Factor. Robert Klein is a blue-chip entrepreneur, passionate advocate and hero to many. His forceful personality and charisma made the institute what it is, but these qualities may not be suited for efficiently executing its mission. Though Klein has said he will step down in 2008, some founding entrepreneurs mistime their exit. Murphy will have to deftly manage Klein's freewheeling ways, leveraging his strengths while covering his weaknesses. Checking the ego at the door will help.

• Mission. The CIRM strategic plan is a working blueprint and also a matter of public record. Weighing in on tactical issues such as how to best fund promising therapeutic areas and the work of young investigators will be important, but in the end the committees and scientific reviews will determine fine adjustments in direction. Diverting from the plan will be routine and necessary. Managing expectations from the stakeholders and citizens while maintaining a steady course will be a major challenge.

• Secession. Any executive who has worked in a startup knows six months will pass in an instant. A permanent president must be found, one who can handle the political challenges while tending to the small stuff, the decidedly unsexy but essential routine of ramping up and running a large research granting agency. If Murphy is serious about his short tenure, then one hour every day networking with potential replacements will be time well spent.

CIRM's second phase is more important than the first. California voters put their money on the line for a vision of science and medicine. Now comes the hard part. The institute must execute the plan, bringing new knowledge, discoveries and therapies to California.

About the writer:

• Christopher Thomas Scott was a candidate for the CIRM presidency and says he is not a candidate in the current presidential search. He is director of the Stanford University Program on Stem Cells in Society and senior research scholar at the Center for Biomedical Ethics.