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Stem cells: The 3-billion-dollar question

Nature volume 453, pages 18–21 (2008)Cite this article

Can a state do what a country cannot, and transform the way stem-cell research is funded? Erika Check Hayden reports on the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

Evan Snyder could hardly believe what he was hearing. About four years ago, Snyder, a neuroscientist and paediatrician, was sitting in the Los Angeles living room of Hollywood mogul Jerry Zucker, the producer and director behind movies such as Airplane! and The Naked Gun. Zucker's wife, Janet, and a mix of fellow scientists, Hollywood heavyweights, political staff and patient advocates were also there. And they were throwing around numbers that astounded Snyder, director of a stem-cell research programme at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research in La Jolla, California. Snyder had been invited to the meeting to discuss what he thought was an idea to raise US$3 million for stem-cell research. That seemed like an enormous sum. Yet as the meeting progressed, it became clear that he had been mistaken.

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Bertram Lubin at the Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI)

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Check Hayden, E. Stem cells: The 3-billion-dollar question. Nature 453, 18–21 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/453018a

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