Editorial: Vested interests shouldn't decide stem cell grants

Internal conflicts continue to undermine the credibility and mission of California's quasi-public stem cell agency, the Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

Created by Proposition 71 in 2004, the institute is led by a 29-member oversight board charged with dispensing $3 billion for stem cell research to universities, medical institutions and biotech firms over the next 10 years.

Yet there's a big problem with this arrangement.

Largely because of how Proposition 71 was written, more than half of the people appointed to the institute's oversight board work for universities and medical institutions that are seeking institute grants.

All are expected to be impartial stewards of public money, even as they are paid to serve as energetic advocates for their own institutions. Clearly, it is impossible for many of them to wear both hats, judging by the latest failure of board members to abide by their own rules.

On Friday, the institute tossed out 10 of 58 grant proposals filed by young scientists vying for $85 million designed to bring junior faculty into the field of stem cell research.

None of those 10 young scientists did anything wrong. Yet the institute's staff was forced to disqualify their proposals because certain university administrators – who are also members of the oversight board – filed letters in support of the researchers' grant applications.

Who are these administrators? We don't know for sure. As of Monday, institute officials were declining to name names, citing a long-standing policy not to disclose information about grant applications.

Yet according to reporting from the San Francisco Chronicle and other papers, the researchers who lost out on their grant applications worked for the University of California, San Francisco; UCLA; the University of Southern California and UC San Diego.

It's difficult to understand how the deans who run these universities could have created such a mess for themselves. The institute's rules clearly state that members of the Independent Citizen's Oversight Committee shall not "attempt to use their official position to influence a decision regarding a grant, loan or contract with their employer."

Moreover, the various deans can't claim they were obligated to write support letters for their young grant applicants. The institute's rules state that support letters can come from either a dean or a department head – an option that gives ICOC board members an easy out from the rules.

The entire episode reveals much about this insular agency. Despite years of warnings about secrecy and insider dealings, the institute's overseers continue to break their own rules and then refuse to provide information about the apparent violators. They claim they are subject to "unprecedented levels of oversight" – as stated in a letter to The Bee published Saturday – even though lawmakers can't touch this agency without a supermajority of votes.

The consequences do not bode well for cutting-edge research.

Ten scientists have now lost out on grants that could lead to research breakthroughs. Others will surely lose out in future scandals if California continues to allow vested interests to determine the expenditure of $3 billion in public money.