California’s stem-cell management disarray

August 31, 2007 | Matt Marshall

Last week, the top scientific official at the institute managing California’s $3 billion stem-cell stepped down unexpectedly.

Arlene Chiu, who joined CIRM with great fanfare in mid-2005, had shouldered additional responsibility when the institute’s president, Zack Hall, left. Chiu left without real explanation.

It’s just the latest challenge for the organization. David Hamilton, at VentureBeat LifeSciences has the update:

….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.

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About the Author, Matt Marshall

Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.