Controlled by Financial Conflicts --- How Did CIRM Board Members Preempt Prop 71 Bond? Why Would Stem Cell Meetings Sponsored by CIRM Blacklist Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research?

Financial conflict of interest without transparency is the formula for abuse and government corruption that CIRM (California Institute for Regenerative Medicine), the California state stem cell agency, has. Anyone with slightest scientific integrity would be shocked to see ICOC such daring undertaken by financial conflicts on California stem cell report, not just a few millions, it is billions, it is hundreds of millions of government fund disappearing into CIRM board’s own institutions and companies without asking any questions if they have any scientific merits and if they have followed the legal procedure of Prop 71. How come Alan Trounson dared to claim that there is no evidence of financial conflicts of interest for CIRM awards on California stem cell report. Maybe Alan Trounson is at easy to know that he and CIRM have already set up many non-transparent safety precautions to cover up any evidences, e.g. use pre-application to deliberately select conflict of interest awards, never disclose any information of those pre-applications, and never allow investigator-initiated applications and appeals for pre-applications. Maybe Alan Trounson is at easy to know that he and CIRM have already preempted Prop 71 bond prior to ICOC public meetings, that no matter which award would come up, no matter who would appeal and win the appeal, the money would always go to CIRM board members’ institutions. Alan Trounson and CIRM have intentionally given California stem cell researchers many difficulties to even apply for CIRM funding by denying them the rights to apply for public fund by law, such as non-transparent pre-application procedures (see our previous posts) and conflict of interests RFAs (e.g., CIRM RFA 12-01, 12-02, 12-03, 12-04, 12-05) in which CIRM has specifically written that Prop 71 stem cell research is not allowed to apply (evidences if you’d like). If those safety precautions of CIRM to preempt Prop 71 bond prior to ICOC public meetings have failed, Alan Trounson even personally denied the existence of such grants. Alan Trounson’ comment on California stem cell report made self-contradicted presumption that university has better sciences or researchers, which is financial conflict of interest evidence itself. University of California, the biggest beneficiary of Prop 71 so far, has not been where the leadership and advances of stem cell research reside in, nor has shown any support to human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research, as evidenced by that UC officials secretly shut down UC hESC research labs. None of CIRM’s excuses to reject or not to consider human embryonic stem cell research grants of Prop 71 has applied to any ICOC awards. Capricor did not have a single piece of scientific data that their cells can become beating heart muscle as we did for human embryonic stem cells (hESCs), or their science or research is better. UC Davis did not have a single piece of scientific data that their cells can regenerate as we did for hESCs, or their science or research is better. STEM did not have a single piece of scientific data that their cells have the capacity/efficiency to repair as we did for hESCs, or their science or research is better. If it is not financial conflicts, we would like to know what it is that those ICOC board members were all awarded $ 20 Ms, while Prop 71 stem cell research could not even pass CIRM pre-application?

Like Alan Trounson said, there is no evidence for financial conflicts of interest. All ICOC board members have followed the symbolic public step to excuse themselves to vote on their own grants, to the extent that none of those ICOC board members’ awards had enough votes required by the law to approve the funding. But those ICOC board members still have their awards passed to receive Prop 71 bond anyway. Maybe we only need to dig little bit deeper for evidences, if take a look at those stem cell meetings keynoted by Alan Trounson or sponsored by CIRM along the courses, such as ISSCR (International society for stem cell research), world stem cell summit, and stem cell meetings on the mesa. How come almost all the invited speakers have preferably been selected by CIRM to receive $Ms of CIRM awards, even though their talks and research have nothing to do with Prop 71 stem cell research? How come none of these so-called stem cell meetings sponsored by CIRM would welcome hESC research, as evident by no hESC research of Prop 71 was ever invited to present. In our experience, hESC research is not only unwelcomed by stem cell meetings sponsored by CIRM, it is in fact, shockingly, on their blacklist. We all know that ISSCR has lobbied a big number of CIRM funding to sponsor their meetings, did ISSCR use those CIRM money to put human embryonic stem cell research on their blacklist? I might be naïve to feel shocked when my poster of hESC research (titled “deriving cardiac elements from pluripotent hESCs for heart reconstitution”) was declined to be presented by ISSCR program chair at 2010 ISSCR meeting in San Francisco when it was perfectly welcomed to be presented in other non-stem cell meetings (see ISSCR poster communications below at SDRMI wordpress). Why? After I emailed to question the fairness of the meeting committee in selecting scientific presentation and restate the importance of our hESC research to the stem cell field, ISSCR responded that my abstract of only 300 words was actually scored by ISSCR committee and it was found that 90% of the abstract restated a problem that everyone recognizes [referred to our openly concerns for the induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells)], and no results in the abstract [in fact, 25% of the abstract was devoted to state the results, though no one would put data/results, reflected in the title, in the abstract] (see ISSCR poster communications below at SDRMI wordpress). I was left without any words because I have never heard such thing that meeting committee would score the abstracts, and apparently, CIRM had also picked up ISSCR such financial conflict of interest tradition to score word and space limited pre-applications. I had emailed and called then ISSCR president Irving Weissman of Stanford University, incoming president Fred Gage of Salk Institute, treasure Sean Morrison, no one responded. We all heard talks of Larry Goldstein and some other members of ISSCR founder’s cycle on the stage that had virtually no stem cell research results to present, but they have never been declined by those meetings sponsored by CIRM. Today, restating those shocking financial conflict of interest results that Irving Weissman gave his personal favorite Shinya Yamanaka preferential keynote for iPS cells at the ISSCR meeting, Deepak Srivastava (the ISSCR program chair) of UCSF would receive big funding for iPS cells and heart reprogramming soon from NIH, and ironically, NIH would soon got sued; Irving Weissman gave his wife preferential on stage presentation for their own company, and Stem cell Inc’s adult stem cells of no Prop 71 scientific merits would get special treatment for $40 M from CIRM, let alone equal amount or more that Irving Weissman has already taken for himself from CIRM with virtually no results, I should feel quite lucky that they had not come after me to shut down my hESC research lab at that time.