transparent Petri dishes

Commentary

One can only hope that instead of judging proposals for grants submitted to it each on its own merits, the Independent Citizens' Oversight Committee (ICOC), authorized by Proposition 71 to spend $3 billion on bio-medical research, will first formulate a strategic plan, a "bio-medical roadmap," according to which it will select projects which, taken as a whole, will advance medical science significantly towards the goal of curing disease and enhancing human health and longevity.

The ICOC also needs to integrate into this strategic plan the latest, and the yet-undeveloped, tools of "computational biology," which harness the analytical and visualizing power of computers to evaluate and, in some cases, to speed up by simulating, experimental inquiries into the nature of the disease and developmental processes that scientific medicine seeks to understand.

Two good ways to get started doing this would be to put the headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) in cyberspace, rather than in any particular physical location in California, and let its employees tele-compute to their offices and cubicles, instead of re-locating and spending much of their valuable time in traffic.

To access three, more-detailed, explanations of why putting the CIRM in cyberspace is good for California, good for bio-medical research, and especially good for the CIRM employees who would most directly benefit by choosing such an option, click on these links: Cyberspace CIRM #1, Cyberspace CIRM #2, and Cyberspace CIRM #3.

With such a CIRM Telework Platform as its basis, the ICOC could move forward to create a California Bio-Grid network that would harness compute cycles from institutions and individuals statewide and apply them to the computations that ICOC-financed researchers will need to carry out their projects, while providing a means to integrate, facilitate, and accelerate all the separate research projects that require computer power to be accomplished.

It's not just computing power that should be purchased in bulk and made available to all the researchers, but also Petri dishes, micro-arrays, and all the other accoutrements of modern science research. Setting overall standards and guidelines, and aggregating the needs of all the researchers and purchasing supplies and equipment for them all, all at once, will ensure the highest quality and lowest cost possible for all, and do a lot to integrate the workers and the work at the separate facilities in pursuit of the whole project's overall goals.

All of this needs to be done in a climate and through a process that is transparent and highlights the accountability of those getting public money to do their scientific research work. The ICOC needs to preside over a process which brings the people of California into it as collaborators, not dupes who are footing the bill and need to wait outside the laboratory for the investigator-priests to emerge with cures available only to the privileged and select at prices few can afford, while enormous profits go to the individuals and organizations whose therapeutic discoveries will have been financed, but neither the monetary or medical benefits enjoyed by, the taxpayers of California.

Click on their name and identification to access interviews with five Californians who want to make sure that the ICOC operates according to the highest standards of openness, transparency, accountability, and integrity: Jesse Reynolds, Program Director at Center for Genetics and Society; Terry Francke, general counsel of Californians Aware; former California State Senator Barry Keene, co-author of the Bagley-Keene Open Meetings Act; Charles Halpren, public interest lawyer and member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies; and consumer advocate and Foundation for Taxpayer & Consumer Rights spokesperson David Fink.

To read a copy of Charles Halpren's January 6, 2005, letter to the ICOC, recommending changes to enhance its openness, transparency, accountability, and integrity, click here.

For more information about Proposition 71 than you'll ever want to have, click on any of these links: Stem Cells #1, Stem Cells #2, Stem Cells #3, Stem Cells #4, and Stem Cells #5.

For a wealth of information about Robert Klein II, principal author and proponent of, and fundraiser for, Proposition 71, currently Chair of the ICOC and Interim President of the CIRM, member of the ICOC Facilities Search Subcommittee, Chair of the ICOC President Search and Site Selection Committees, and, until recently, the Chair of the California Research and Cures Coaliton, click on these links: Robert Klein #1, Robert Klein #2, and Robert Klein #3.

A final note. In their new book, Fantastic Voyage, co-authors Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman, make a case for preventing and treating the same diseases addressed in the Proposition 71 advertising campaign, not by spending $3 billion to finds ways of pushing medical technology forward to remedy degenerative diseases caused by overeating, lack of exercise, smoking, pollution, more overeating, of clearly harmful foods, and so on, but by helping people to avoid these problems in the first place through sound nutrition, regular exercise, and aggressive supplementation, none of which need to cost, individually or collectively, nearly as much as will the research authorized by Proposition 71.

Of course, reforming our lives, our economy, and our society to foster, rather than block, the achievement of human health through sensible living might mean the end of the world as we know it, which would not be fine with everyone, including those responsible for the images, celebrity-centric culture, and advertising that encourage and perpetuate the activities that are, literally, making almost everyone so sick that we find it necessary to pass a $3 billion initiative to fund research into fixing up the damage that could be prevented by a more sensible mode of existence, on top of the billions already being spent on the existing array of drugs and other medical and cosmetic interventions that follow, as the night the day, from the way we are encouraged to, and mostly do, live.