Genentech Hall, UCSF, and the UCLA Medical Center

Finally, some promising news regarding the implementation of Proposition 71.

First, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), set up by this initiative to administer the dispersal of $3 billion in funds for bio-medical research, now has a web site, and an e-mail address. The web site can be found at http://www.cirm.ca.gov/ and the e-mail address is info@cirm.ca.gov.

Secondly, there are increased indications of openness and transparency. Everyone has been calling for more public input into the operations of the Independent Citizens' Oversight Committee (ICOC) that controls the operations of the CIRM. Now, as indicated on the CIRM home page, three ICOC committees, the Presidential, Site, and Scientific and Medical Research Funding Working Group Search Committees will be holding public meetings on the 24th and 25th of January, 2005, and all these meetings include public input on their agendas.

But from the point of view of someone who wants to see the Site Selection Committee recommend a Cyberspace Option to the ICOC, one in which the CIRM headquarters is made virtual and its employees are allowed to work there from home or any other place with a secure Internet connection, the third and most encouraging development is the fact that these committees, which will be "meeting" in Room 114 Genentech Hall at the University of California, San Francisco, and in Room 300 in the James H. Clark Center at Stanford University, will all include public input and member attendance from teleconference venues at the University of California at Los Angeles, the Salk Institute, the University of California at Davis, the Burnham Institute, the Keck School of Medicine at USC, the University of California at Berkley, another campus of UCSF, the Enloe Conference Center in Chico, and the University of San Diego.

These arrangements themselves dramatically illustrate the feasibility, the utility, and the convenience of conducting official ICOC business in cyberspace, allowing participants in the process of implementing Proposition 71 to "be there" from wherever they are.

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 if the ICOC decides to go with the Cyberspace Option, click on these links: Cyberspace CIRM #1, Cyberspace CIRM #2, and Cyberspace CIRM #3.