Читать книгу The SAGE Encyclopedia of Stem Cell Research - Группа авторов - Страница 265

California is generally considered to offer the most supportive and permissive environment for stem cell researchers in the United States. As early as 1981, California researchers collaborated with researchers at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom to cultivate mice embryonic stem cells from explanted inner cell mass cells. California was the first state to adopt an official position of support for stem cell research. When federal funding was severely restricted for embryonic stem cell research because of the ethics debate over using aborted or discarded fetuses as the chief source of stem cells, California expressed its support for stem cell therapies that could save lives by passing Proposition 71, the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Bond Act. Proposition 71 allotted $3 billion in state funding over a 10-year period for stem cell research and created a state stem cell agency, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM).

California’s support for stem cell research has attracted some of the most respected scientists in the world to the state, enticing them away from other American institutions and from other countries. Between 2005 and 2006, at least 30 notable stem cell researchers were recruited to work in California institutions. Private companies involved in stem cell research and therapies are also attracted to California, further swelling the state’s talent pool. The ban restricting the use of federal funds for stem cell research was lifted in 2009 by President Barack Obama, and California began receiving federal funds for stem cell research. By 2014, of the first 14 agencies to receive funding from CIRM, nine were either recruiting patients for clinical trials or were preparing to do so. One study on human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) and another on congestive heart failure were already under way. Upcoming clinical trials involve treatments for leukemia and solid tumor cancers, degenerative eye disease, type 1 diabetes, sickle cell disease, and a severe blood disorder.