The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine’s (CIRM)
choice for its new head would have been unthinkable when the institute was
first established almost 10 years ago. Yet today, it seems fitting, given the direction
stem cell research has taken over the same decade.
C.
Randal Mills recently took over as CIRM’s new president. Before taking his new post, Mills had been
president and CEO of Osiris Therapeutics. Osiris pursues therapies based on stem cell
research, so in that regard, Mill’s appointment to head up CIRM would seem
highly appropriate.
However, Osiris pursues non-embryonic,
adult stem cell research,
particularly with mesenchymal stem cells.
That why his appointment would have been so unthinkable at CIRM’s
founding.
Apart from the federal government, CIRM is the nation’s
largest funder of stem cell research. As
noted before in this blogspot, CIRM was established for the express purpose of
giving priority funding for embryonic stem cell research and SCNT (i.e.,
cloning) over all other avenues of stem cell research. And in its early years, CIRM did just
that. But over the years, more and more
of CIRM’s grants have gone to
support adult and other avenues of non-embryonic stem cell research such as
induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) research.
So in this regard, Mill’s appointment to head CIRM today makes perfect
sense.
Mills succeeds Alan
Trounson as president of CIRM.
Trounson was an enthusiastic supporter of human embryonic stem cell
research (hESCR), being one of the first Australian researchers to have
isolated hESCs.
In contrast, Mills has said he is “agnostic” when it comes
to stem cell research, explaining
that “for me, it is all about getting stem cell solutions to patients.” In other words, Mills will not show any
favoritism towards funding hESCR projects over non-embryonic stem cell research
projects simply because they use embryonic stem cells; instead, funding will go
to projects that have the greatest chance of “bringing treatments to patients,
fast.”
In the context of CIRM’s founding mission to prioritize
funding for hESCR, Mills’ apparent refusal to do so is remarkable.
It is, however an accurate reflection of how CIRM’s funding
has been shifting over the years towards funding non-embryonic stem cell
research projects. In fact, it is an
accurate reflection of how the whole field of regenerative medicine has shifted
over the years. Human embryonic stem
cell research has completely failed to live up to the hype it generated after
embryonic stem cells were first isolated
in 1998.
And no longer can proponents of hESCR fairly claim that it
is the front-runner in the race to develop therapies for patients.
