Los Angeles-----------Sacramento-----------San Diego-----------San Francisco

Portola Valley/Cyberspace, California

Commentary

Two recent articles ( "Everybody wins by putting the Proposition 71 Stem Cell Institute in Cyberspace, California" and "Using the Broadband California infrastructure, let's solve the problem of where to put the $3 billion California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) by putting it everywhere and nowhere") have suggested that instead of selecting only one of the many places in California with powerful economic and political interests as the location for the $3 billion Proposition 71 stem cell Institute, that the question of where to put this aggregation of bio-bureaucrats be resolved by putting it everywhere and nowhere, in Cyberspace, California.

The arguments in favor of doing this include drastically shortened "time-to-market," in setting up the agency that will be granting funds to biotech companies and universities; obviating the need for these workers to waste countless hours of precious time in a daily commute; increasing the speed and security with which ICOC business can be accomplished; saving energy and reducing pollution; precluding the need to return the favor to whomever offers "free" office space; avoiding a lot of bickering over who gets the site and a lot of recriminations and bad feeling from those who don't; giving the "hard-tech" sector (microelectronics, computers, and telecom) a real chance to show their telework/telecommuting stuff, as a way of further stimulating that part of the California economy and building its synergy with the "soft-tech" (bio-medical and genomic) sector; positioning the CIRM and its associated grantees to take advantage fully and rapidly of powerful "grid computing" technologies of considerable utility for doing "computational stem cell biology"; and saving all the CIRM employees the time, expense, aggravation and dislocation of having to re-locate to wherever a single physical site would be, thereby allowing the selection of staff on the basis of ability, track record, commitment to the project, and possession of essential skills, rather than any accidents of geography involving the location of potential team members.

Far from being some ridiculous scheme from the time when the Internet was populated almost entirely by wild-eyed and irresponsible visionaries who believed every imaginable problem could be solved by "putting it on the Internet," putting the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine in cyberspace is merely the logical extension of some very well-accepted ideas about what is possible, and the application in one particular sphere of technological tools that are already, in a commonplace way, being used, to great advantage, by progressive organizations throughout the world, to the tremendous benefit of themselves and those other organizations and individuals with which they interact on a daily basis.

Comments illustrating the obviousness of putting the California Stem Cell Institute in cyberspace can be found in two recent articles about where to put the CIRM, which appeared in two widely-respected newspapers, the San Diego Union-Tribune and the New York Times.

In a very thorough article by Terri Somers in the December 5, 2004, SignOnSanDiego.com by the Union-Tribune entitled "Biotech cluster bluster--San Diego, Bay Area both working to land new institute for stem cell research", Ms. Somers writes:

"Modern communication tools will enable grant applicants to interact with the committee and its administrative offices wherever they wind up, the committee members said."

And, in an article published today, January 11, 2005, in the New York Times entitled "California Stem Cell Program on Fast Track," by reporter Andrew Pollack, there is a revealing comment from some unnamed members of the Proposition 71-created Independent Citizens' Oversight Committee (ICOC), which met at the University of Southern California (USC) Medical School in a five-hour meeting on January 6, 2005. Included in Mr. Pollack's article are these remarks:

"The board formed a committee to find an office, another to search for a president to run the institute and another to recruit the three working groups that will recommend grants and develop ethical standards.

"Some members said it would be better to find a president first because the best candidate might not take the job if it meant a move to another city. Major cities are expected to vie to be home to the institute."

If, instead of having "major cities" vying "to be home to the institute," the honor was spread evenly over the entire State of California by allowing Institute workers to work from their homes, wherever in the state they were, not only would the president of the Institute not need to "move to another city," neither would any of the other 50 or so employees need to do so, thereby speeding the day when the ICOC, the CIRM, and all the bio-technology researchers fortunate enough to receive Institute grants throughout the State of California could get down to the work at hand, finding cures for terrible diseases through a more complete understanding of the biology of embryonic stem cells.

As the principal author, angel investor, and chief proponent of Proposition 71, unanimously-nominated-and-elected Chair of the ICOC, Interim President of the CIRM, until very recently chair of the California Research and Cures Coalition (CRCC), Stanford Law School-trained attorney, multi-millionaire low-income housing developer, "major Democratic campaign donor" and Chair of the ICOC's "Site Selection Subcommittee" Robert Klein II said at the January 6, 2005, meeting of the ICOC at the University of Southern California reported on in the New York Times article, "We have a responsibility to move as quickly as possible."

Putting the Institute in Cyberspace, California, would allow for that speed, and would greatly facilitate its operations going forward. It's really just common sense to use the best computing and telecommuting tools, as well as the latest bio-technology methods, in pursuit of the goals addressed by California Proposition 71. The people of California, who voted in November, 2004 by a ratio of 3-2 to approve this $3 billion research effort, deserve no less.