As the University moves to utilize its $1.2 million grant for stem cell research training from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) — the first of three annual installments to come — the promise of additional funding still hangs in legal limbo.

A $3.7 million grant in total, the current fund makes up a portion of the $12.1 million CIRM will use to train 169 students at California universities studying stem cell biology.

The Independent Citizens Oversight Committee (ICOC), which oversees CIRM, approved training grant applications last September to graduate students as well as post-doctoral and clinical scholars. The grants set up funding for training, including mandatory courses in stem cell biology and disease as well as the social, legal and ethical implications of research.

“These are training grants, so the money will be spent in training people to do this research,” Greely said. “I believe that applications for the fellowships for this training will go out soon.”

Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Genetics David Magnus, the author of the grant’s ethics section, emphasized that the grant will not fund research. “This is not a research grant,” he said. “The first grants issued were not for research, but for training. Before we can spend a lot of money on research, we need researchers to receive the money and not many people have been trained to do stem cell research. Part of training would include lab techniques and basic science, but it would also include some regulatory knowledge and ethics training.”

Magnus emphasized the importance of a sold ethics background.

“It was required that ethics be included as a component to produce the next generation of stem cell researchers,” he said.

Christopher Scott, executive director of the Stanford Program on Stem Cells and Society, championed the grants’ emphasis on other areas besides science.

“The grants have provisions to teach students and scholars in areas of ethics, public policy and law,” he said. “I think it’s important that researchers who learn about the science also learn about other dimensions of stem cell biology.”

CIRM was established in 2004 with California’s passing of Proposition 71, which finances $3 billion over the next 10 years for research. According to Scott, conservative groups are still challenging the legality of the measure.

“Two original lawsuits have been rolled into one, and that complaint is being heard by the State Superior Court,” he said. “One of the plaintiffs is [a group of] religious conservatives who were behind the Terry Schiavo case and the other group are anti-tax conservatives who take the position that the [CIRM] doesn’t have sufficient state oversight. In other words, a state organization with state employees should distribute state funds.”

According to Law School Prof. Hank Greely, the outcome is still unclear. “The trial of the consolidated lawsuits ended six weeks ago,” he said. “We are all awaiting the judge’s ruling.”

Meanwhile, CIRM has been able to frontload the first batch of installments through the release of bond anticipation notes and philanthropists’ donations.

“Bond council won’t agree to the sale of bonds at the lower standard rates as long as there’s a risk that Proposition 71 will be overturned,” Magnus said. “So the litigation has essentially successfully slowed down the ability to sell the bonds that would fund research. The initial hearing at the legal level has already taken place and everyone has been waiting weeks for the decision to come down.”

Scott said that bond notes hold no guarantee in reimbursement.

“Robert Klein, the chair of the ICOC has had to raise bridge funding by selling bond anticipatory notes on the hope there will be a favorable ruling by the Superior Court,” he said. “The sale notes come with no guarantee. If the lawsuit is settled in favor of the plaintiffs, then [the purchasers are] out of their money. If the lawsuit is settled in favor of CIRM, then the money is repaid as soon as the bonds are issued.”

Despite his belief that Prop. 71 will succeed in the courts, Magnus worried that funds may be delayed even longer.

“Most people are optimistic given pre-trial rulings that the decision will favor Proposition 71, but we won’t know for sure until the decision is actually rendered. We expect the opponents will file an appeal, but how long they will succeed in delaying, we don’t know.”

Magnus said that Stanford and CIRM have no way of knowing when more funds will be available.

“It’s possible that bond council would say this is clearly going to fly and that decision could come next week,” he said. “On the other hand, bond council could say ‘I want to wait until it runs its course through the California Supreme Court’ — and it could run for a round of appeals. It could be delayed for another 12 to 15 months.”

However, Scott remained optimistic that Prop. 71 will succeed in the end.

“The lawyers that I talk to say the suit is likely to be settled in favor of the Proposition 71 proponents,” he said. “On the basis of that prediction, the Institute has been successful in raising this bridge funding. So, both of those things seem to work in favor of the lawsuit being settled.”