Stem Cell Effort Could Have Headquarters by May 6
Related News: Stem Cell ResearchThe Site Search Committee of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (Prop 71) on Thursday chose the speedy schedule for evaluating sites around the state for the headquarters of the Institute.
The full board, meeting March 1, is expected to approve the schedule.
The Institute, which is also searching for a president, has not approved a date for issuing grants, but Ed Penhoet, president of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and a founder of Chiron Corp. (NASDAQ: CHIR), and vice chairman of the oversight committee, said he expects the Institute to be able to make a May deadline for the first grant approval.
According to the calendar approved Thursday, the site selection committee cities and other local government agencies would have until March 16 to submit bids.
They would be winnowed to four or five by the Department of General Services by March 25, and the site selection committee would choose its first choice and a runner up at a public hearing on April 22.
The citizen oversight committee would make the final choice May 6.
Officials from Economic Development Office in the city of Sacramento successfully argued that specific language in a draft of request for proposals that specified that there should be at least "25,000 professionals in the field of biomedical research" residing within a 45-minute commute of the site, should be dropped.
Also Thursday, Richard Murphy, president of the Salk Institute in La Jolla, got the committee to agree to drop a requirement that the site be within a two-hour plane trip to Sacramento.
Posted on February 25, 2005 08:56 PM