Monday, June 04, 2007

Gaucho Scientists Likely to Win Stem Cell Grant

UC Santa Barbara appears to be on its way to winning a $1.8 million stem cell lab grant from the California stem cell institute.

That was the biggest development out of Monday night's meeting of CIRM's Oversight Committee, which met at the Luxe Hotel on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.

The committee did not have a quorum, so it could not take official action. But the group approved a recommendation to move the UCSB grant to the top tier of grants expected to be approved.

The application had received low marks from the facilities working group but was ranked high for its research plans. The low marks were mainly related to construction costs in Santa Barbara, which is one of the more expensive areas in which to build in California.

No Gauchos, as UCSB denizens are known, appeared before the committee. Nor did representatives of any of the other lower ranking proposals make a last minute pitch to save their plans for stem cell labs.

Perhaps they will appear Tuesday morning, but we suspect they are not fully aware that they can appear before the Oversight Committee to explain why their proposals are worthy of funding.

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