California’s stem-cell management disarray

August 30, 2007 | David P. Hamilton | Comments | |

(CORRECTED: See below.)

cirm-logo.jpgThese should be the best of times for California’s $3 billion stem-cell program. Lawsuits that barred the institute from spending its vast sums have been dismissed, serious money has started to flow to scientists, and a $227 million capital-spending project that will build new laboratories across the state is gearing up.

For all its successes, however, the stem-cell organization — formally known as the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine — can’t seem to keep its top officials on board. First, there was the abrupt resignation of the institute’s first president, Zach Hall, who departed CIRM at the end of April, months earlier than his original plan, amid internal tensions over that capital-spending project. By mid-summer, the stem-cell body had made little progress finding a replacement and instead tapped Richard Murphy, the recently retired head of the Salk Institute and a former member of the stem-cell institute’s powerful oversight committee, to take the reins on a temporary basis (PDF link).

Then came the news last week that the institute’s top scientific official, Arlene Chiu, is also leaving unexpectedly. Chiu, who joined CIRM with great fanfare in mid-2005, ended up shouldering additional responsibility when Hall left. Last week, she said simply that she would be returning to her home in Los Angeles to “pursue new professional directions” — a statement that carries more than a whiff of burnout. (At least she’s not leaving to spend more time with her family.) Chiu doesn’t leave until October, and will remain a consultant to the institute after that.

CIRM spokesman Dale Carlson says these and other recent staff departures noted by David Jensen over at the California Stem Cell Report were all for individual reasons, that they’re unrelated to one another and that “[t]he timing is coincidental and nothing more should be read into them.” Maybe that’s true, and absent calling them all up, there’s really no way to know for sure, although CIRM certainly has an incentive to put out the message that all is well.

That said, it seems safe to say that the stem-cell agency is probably one of the most grueling places to work in all of biomedicine. Structurally, CIRM is a Rube Goldberg-inspired contraption in which a panel of 26 appointed academic luminaries, business types and patient advocates oversees a professional staff of no more than 50. The powerful oversight committee chairman, Robert Klein II, essentially runs the show, which undoubtedly complicates the job of finding a prominent biologist — not usually the shyest and most self-effacing people around — willing to give up their laboratory in order to butt heads with Klein over the institute’s management and direction.

What’s more, CIRM itself was deliberately designed to function on a shoestring. That hard cap of 50 staffers was initially intended to reassure California voters that the agency wouldn’t waste taxpayer money on a hiring binge, and in that sense, it’s clearly worked. On the other hand, add the fact that the agency hasn’t even come close to filling all 50 positions to the string of departures, and it begins to look a lot like the institute is paying the price by burning through its human resources at an accelerated rate. (See also this related comment from Christopher Thomas Scott of Stanford’s Stem Cells in Society program over on Dave Jensen’s blog.)

This is certainly one way to run an organization, and it’s probably helped the stem-cell organization avoid criticism of how it’s managing taxpayer funds. (It also would have been unseemly to staff up too much when the agency was living primarily off of charitable donations, as it was before the courts dismissed the lawsuits.) On the other hand, there are other risks to running so lean. Last spring, CIRM approved a $2.6 million grant to a Los Angeles outfit called the CHA Regenerative Medicine Institute, a nonprofit subsidiary of a for-profit South Korean company, and one whose founding president appeared to be embroiled in plagiarism allegations. The resulting mini-scandal appears to have since fizzled out, particularly once the plagiarism allegations were retracted, but it’s an early cautionary tale for CIRM, which surely doesn’t want to face future scandals that could have been prevented with a bit of additional staff oversight.

Read More:
* On CIRM and stem cells, see this item on whether the U.S. “brain drain” is reversing or not, and this item on whether Big Pharma is tiptoeing into embryonic stem-cell investments (with a followup here).
* For other biotech-related pieces, check out this item on Koronis and its unique anti-HIV strategy, these looks at recent baby steps toward “personalized medicine,” a take on the ridiculously large IPO envisioned by Talecris Biotherapeutics, and two items on startups that aim to pioneer the dawning age of “personal genetics.”
* On more general medical subjects, see my admittedly opinionated takes on healthcare reform, evidence-based medicine, the nascent push for electronic health records and Andy Grove’s quixotic healthcare-reform crusade.

CORRECTION: This item originally stated that CIRM “handed out” a $2.6 million grant to the CHA Regenerative Medicine Institute. That grant is still in administrative review, so I’ve corrected the wording.

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Photo of David P. Hamilton

About the Author, David P. Hamilton

David Hamilton has been writing for VentureBeat LifeScience since April 2007. He formerly spent 14 years as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal in its San Francisco and Tokyo bureaus. Prior to that, he spent several years as a reporter at Science Magazine and as a reporter/researcher for the New Republic, both in Washington.

  • One factual correction: CIRM did not "hand out" a $2.6 million grant to the CHA Regenerative Medicine Institute last spring, nor have we subsequently. The grant was approved by the CIRM governing board, but like all board-approved grants, it is subject to administrative review before it can be funded. That review is still underway.

    Dale A. Carlson
    Chief Communications Officer
    California Institute for Regenerative Medicine
  • David Serrano Sewell
    David,

    The correction noted by Dale is not the only mistake here. The only thing is "disarry" is this article. Bob runs the show? Gimme a break. You may find this hard to believe, but people want to work with him, so he's been a plus in our efforts to recruit a president.

    David, with all our faults, I challenge you to find a state agency that has been more effective. Those grants don't just happen, it takes hard work and lots of meetings. And, we've been transparent throughout the entire process. Thus, the system envisioned by Prop 71 works. I can appreciate that it's your job to read the tea leaves and make some half baked spin, but you're just wrong here.

    We continue to search for a president and adhere to the mission. It's a talented group, we can walk and chew gum and the same time.

    Best,

    David Serrano Sewell, ICOC member
  • David P. Hamilton
    David, thanks for your comment. I'm certainly not downplaying CIRM's achievements -- the first paragraph of my item listed several of its major accomplishments, in fact. I am, however, noting that the agency seems to have trouble hiring or retaining talented staff at the very moment when it should be coming into its own as the nation's largest dispenser of stem-cell funding. Why is that? You don't offer any additional explanations, so it still seems pretty likely that the strain on CIRM's staff remains severe. I'm not alone in thinking this -- see, for instance, Christopher Scott's piece in the Sacramento Bee today (hat tip: Dave Jensen).

    As for Bob Klein, I acknowledge that he's accomplished a great deal, both as the primary mover behind Prop. 71 and chairman of the ICOC. It's impossible to escape the impression, however, that he's not the easiest person to deal with as ICOC chairman, particularly if you happen to be the president of CIRM. I intended no denigration of the ICOC membership, but it's a bureaucratic fact that when you have a 26-headed hydra trying to run a public agency, whoever controls the agenda and many if not most staff resources effectively directs the body's effort -- and that's more or less what Bob does.

    As always, I welcome alternative evidence, and I have been known to change my mind on occasion. Thanks again for your contribution, and please feel free to write in again at any time.
  • David,

    Allegations of plagiarism aren't the only eyebrow-raiser about Cha Regenerative Medicine and CIRM's approval of a $2.6 million grant for it to do somatic cell nuclear transfer. As we (Center for Genetics and Society) noted at the time, Cha also runs a fertility clinic, and the (recently departed) director of that clinic is the subject of a lawsuit filed by a patient who says he lied about the disposition of her eggs and embryos.

    To top it off, Cha's stem cell researchers and fertility clinic are in the same building on Wilshire Blvd in LA.

    Acquiring women's eggs for cloning-based stem cell derivation is dicey - invasive, potentially dangerous, and ethically fraught.

    CIRM's approving this outfit is troubling. Dale notes that an administrative review of the grant to Cha is still underway. It would not speak well for the agency's stated commitments to the highest ethical standards were that money to go out the door.

    The CGS press release is here: http://www.geneticsandsociety.org/article.php?i...

    Best
    Marcy Darnovsky
    Associate Executive Director
    Center for Genetics and Society
  • In case that last comment doesn't make it through the spam filter, I'd like to point out that Mrs. Darnovsky's group is an anti-regenerative medicine lobbying group mentioned favorably on many pro-life and Catholic websites. As such, her organization may be consider to be nothing more than a proxy for the agenda of the Catholic church.

    Does your organization also oppose distribution of condoms in HIV-plagued South Africa, Mrs. Darnovsky?