Monday, November 09, 2009

Torres Hails CIRM Innovation, Leadership

The Sacramento Bee last week carried an op-ed piece by Art Torres, co-vice chairman of the $3 billion California stem cell agency, touting the virtues of CIRM, its innovation and the wisdom of the California electorate.

Torres, a former state legislator and former head of the state Democratic party, said,
"(The) drive to innovate is what led voters to create the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine and its charter to invest in stem cell research. The goal was clear: Keep California, its universities and biotech industry on the forefront of this most promising area of innovation in health care."
Torres focused particularly on CIRM's ambitious, $230 million disease team grant and loan effort, the largest research round in the agency's history.

Torress said,
"There are no other funding organizations in the country that are able to make this kind of investment in stem cell innovation."
He continued,
"We don't yet know what researchers will discover. But we do know that, whatever they discover, this new approach to science means we will be able to turn it into viable treatments for people much, much faster than ever before. That will move stem cells from the promise of new therapies to delivering on that promise for the people of California.

"And that's exactly what the voters wanted when they created CIRM: for it to reflect the innovative leadership that is this state."
Torres" piece drew only three comments online from readers. All were negative.

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