The initial grants are under way to help fund a three-year training initiative for potential stem cell researchers starting this fall at medical schools and other educational institutions around the state. Members of a scientific working group will meet in early August to evaluate the first 28 proposals.

Additionally, other contentious issues which involve intellectual property and patent rights have yet to be settled. Some of the more staunch critics of the stem cell institute acknowledges that the biggest fight seems to be winding down, after an institute subcommittee agreed to a set of interim policy changes that require broader financial disclosures and assure most working group meetings will be public.

"They've come a long way," said Jesse Reynolds, project manager at the Center for Genetics and Society, an Oakland group critical of the stem cell program's finance and public oversight aspects. "In most cases, we're down to arguing a surprisingly refined level of detail about these things."

Reynolds went on to say that some of the biggest concerns about stem cell research involved ethical matters and protections for egg donors. These issues will be pointed to a new forum which includes a working group of institute ethics advisors, who meet for the first time, in a public session, Wednesday in San Francisco.

Charles Halpern, a Berkeley public interest lawyer, credited the agency's high-profile chairman, Robert N. Klein, for listening to opponents he had previously brushed aside. Halpern and former UCSF chancellor Dr. Philip Lee, a prominent health-policy specialist now teaching at Stanford University, have filed a formal petition critiquing agency policies.

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