Cooking Awards --- Sanford Consortium’s Fictitious Stem Cell Research & Directors’ Financial Ties Far and Wide

California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) $10M award to Viacyte in most recent round is a laudable positive move towards the right path of California stem cell bond initiative, known as Proposition 71 (Prop 71), on the road to commercialize stem cell therapy for diabetes currently affecting ~ 250 million people worldwide. It is probably the only bright spot among hundreds of millions of CIRM conflicts of interest (COI) awards repressive to Prop 71 that have quickly doubled California state’s debt to > $1.6 billion since CIRM’s new Chair Jon Thomas took office over a year ago. However, it did not come without cooking the financial ties with CIRM Directors. Its advocacy for CA stem cell initiative as cures to type I diabetes patients is also tarnished by CIRM board’s equal amount of COI award to a out of state gene-therapy company Bluebird Bio that has no relationship whatsoever to CA stem cell initiative or Prop 71, but has close ties to CIRM board (e.g., Bertran Lubin) from Oakland CHO/UCs and Sanford Consortium directors (e.g., Larry Goldstein & Duane Roth). Such real financial ties to CIRM directors have also dampened any enthusiasm about CIRM very publicized move to turning CA stem cell initiative into any cures, and raised the eyebrow if CIRM’s initiative to steer towards industry by partnership is only to help CIRM directors to extend their financial ties far and wide, and if it is only to make it easier for CIRM directors to recreate a industry replica for what they have done in academia, which so far has yielded virtually zero results with CA state $1.6 billion of investment.

For simple-minded gullible public, neither Prop 71 nor scientific merit can help understand CIRM $1.6 billion of awards. It is a conflict of interest (COI) phenomenon that can only be explained by their financial ties to CIRM board. The award cooking processes actually started far before CIRM RFAs were even issued. If we wonder how a Massachusetts gene-therapy company tapped California's stem cell agency for cash help, maybe we should take a look at Larry Goldstein & Duane Roth’s stem cell meeting on the mesa (SCMOM) organized by CIRM, Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine (SCFRM), and Alliance for Regenerative Medicine (ARM). Those CIRM future grantees had already been printed on SCMOM invited list a year ago. SCMOM is a meeting full of Sanford directors and their organizers’ academia and industry ties with financial interests to CA Prop 71, therefore, has no room to accommodate any CA’s Prop 71 stem cell research since its inception in 2005. After last year’s SCMOM, CIRM issued 6 consecutive COI RFAs, 3 of which being instructed to boldly exclude Prop 71 stem cell research against the law, to accommodate Sanford directors and their organizers’ academia and industry interests to CA Prop 71 for cash, which shows that Larry Goldstein and Duane Roth’s SCMOM featuring CIRM president Alan Trounson, vice president Ellen Feigal, and chair Jon Thomas as well as Larry Goldstein’s close professional associates (e.g., Craig Venter, Robert Wechsler-Reya, Catriona Jamieson, Vanessa Hayes, Adam Engler, Kristin Baldwin) is not just a simple stem cell meeting as simple-minded gullible public & stem cell scientists would think. The dynamics of their strategic partnership movement afterwards have not been just coincidence. There were Shire or investor partner or capital raising rounds, organized by Duane Roth/UC connect or Janssen or ARM, to companies financially tied to directors of CIRM and/or Sanford. David Davidson from Genzyme moved to Bluebird and forged connections with Oakland & UCLA directors. Duane Roth moved to Sanford Burnham board; Sanford Burnham’s Paul Laikind moved to Viacyte; Evan Snyder of Sanford Burnham moved to the board of Alan Trounson’ company ISCCO; John Reed, Mark Mercola, Clive Svedensen, and Larry Goldstein were met at Sanford Burnham, so they could be all together ready to ripe their cooked awards from CIRM.

Why would, in 2012, CIRM and Alan Trounson still continue to implement a 3 year-old 2009 leadership award for out-of-state fictitious stem cell scientists, while completely ignore any CA stem cell research leaders and their endeavors for Prop 71 stem cell research? We may remember Irving Weissman said something like that he wanted to get all the stem cell experts coming to CA. REALLY? If we know who are among those Irving Weissman had CIRM bribed into CA with public money, maybe Irving Weissman meant to say that he wanted to get all his professional associates coming to CA to help him cooking CIRM awards. Larry Goldstein, as a permanent member on Irving Weisman’s ISSCR (International Society for Stem Cell Research) board, did not just invite Robert Wechsler-Reya once, he invited him so many times that even I could not completely miss his talks. In 2009, in order to understand why he was the only speaker from out of state invited by Larry Goldstein and Alan Trounson, my gullible brain tried hard to find any stem cell research or stem cell in his talk at SCMOM, but did not succeed. It was not until ~ 6 months later when Alan Trounson gave Robert Wechsler-Reya $6 million CIRM leadership award without going through the regular grant review process, we were able to realize that they were cooking CIRM leadership award at SCMOM. But I still could not understand why Larry Goldstein, who is notoriously repressive to stem cell research at UCSD and SCFRM, would be so fond of Robert Wechsler-Reya and his wife, not only guaranteed a out-of–state person without any stem cell research experience $ 6M from CA state stem cell initiative to become Tumor Program Director at Sanford Burnham, but also had his wife promoted to professor at UCSD Pharmacology Department. It was not until Robert Wechsler-Reya wife’s professional tie to Irving Weissman became unveiled, just like Catriona Jamieson, Fred Gage, and some others around Larry Goldstein and Duane Roth, I could realize why Larry Goldstein and Duane Roth guaranteed their residency at SCFRM, while despotically claim SCFRM, built with public state money for stem cell research, cannot accommodate any San Diego’s stem cell research against law. Without their professional and financial ties to ISSCR, CIRM & review boards, ARM & big Pharms, even NIH, without their constantly inviting/bribing their COI ties & forging/polishing COI strategic partnership in the name of stem cell meeting/research, it is hard to imagine that, with virtually no stem cell research results, Larry Goldstein & Irving Weissman’s inner circle could be able to snap up > $500M cooked awards from CIRM just for those who have direct connection to ISSCR board, including ~ $40M to Larry Goldstein and his associates, ~ $ 70 M to Irving Weissman and his company, ~ $30 M to Catriona Jamieson and more to other offspring or professional associates of Irving Weissman.     

If we, the people, and the government for the people, count on Duane Roth and other CIRM directors to do their job, to ensure Prop 71 cash go to stem cell research, not to their own COI ties, what they have done and what SCMOM have accommodated are telling us that we are mistaken. The one thing SCMOM invited speakers share in common is not stem cell research, but their far and wide professional and financial ties to Larry Goldstein and Sanford directors. SCMOM should be called CIRM grantee meeting, because it accommodates CIRM past and future cooked grantees. If the public and CA state government wonder where our $1.6 billion has gone to and why there is no result, it is the meeting they should attend. It is the meeting not showing progresses/advances of stem cell research, not showing cures/hope for patients, but waste of hundreds of millions of public/state money on useless research or Sanford consortium fictitious stem cell research, and continuing waste of hundreds of millions of public/state stem cell research money on waiting cooked awards for CIRM COI RFAs on iPS/adult cells. It is a meeting that the Nobel committee should also eavesdrop too, because then they could hear the truth about those so-called biggest breakthrough of adult stem cell research hailed by opponents of Prop 71 stem cell research, hear that the induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) are actually useless for patients, having structural defects, oncogenes, genes for diseases & tumors, mutations for genes maintaining genomic stability, etc. SCMOM could accommodate flies (e.g., Leanne Jones of Salk Institute), mouse/adult cells (e.g., Alessandra Sacco of Sanford Burnham/Stanford), cancer (e.g., Robert Weschsler-Reya of Sanford Burnham, Catriona Jamieson of UCSD), and iPS/adult cells (e.g., Kristein Baldwin of Scripps, Ken Zhang of UCSD, Vanessa Hayes of Craig Venter, Birgitt Schuele of Parkinson’s institute). SCMOM could accommodate stem cell research imposters and stem cell conman’s big claims with virtually no data (e.g., Fyodor Urnov of Sangamo’s cardiomyocytes from pluripotent cells). SCMOM could not accommodate Prop 71 stem cell research but something close to a hoax that our taxpayers should not have to pay.