Bob Klein

A year unlike any other – a look back at one year post Prop 14

/ Kevin McCormack / 4 Comments

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State flag of California

2020 was, by any standards, a pretty wacky year. Pandemic. Political convulsions. And a huge amount of uncertainty as to the funding of life-saving therapies at CIRM. Happily those all turned out OK. We got vaccines to take care of COVID. The election was won fair and square (seriously). And Proposition 14 was approved by the voters of California, re-funding your favorite state Stem Cell Agency.

But for a while, quite a while, there was uncertainty surrounding our future. For a start, once the pandemic lockdown kicked in it was impossible for people to go out and collect the signatures needed to place Proposition 14 on the November ballot. So the organizers of the campaign reached out online, using petitions that people could print out and sign and mail in.

It worked. But even after getting all the signatures needed they faced problems such as how do you campaign to get something passed, when the normal channels are not available. The answer is you get very creative very quickly.

Bob Klein

Bob Klein, the driving force behind both Proposition 71 (the 2004 ballot initiative that created CIRM) and Proposition 14, says it was challenging:

“It was a real adventure. It’s always hard, you have a complicated message about stem cells and genetics and therapy and it’s always a challenge to get a million signatures for a ballot initiative but in the middle of a pandemic where we had to shut down the signature gathering at grocery stores and street corners, where we had to go to petitions that had to be sent to voters and get them to fill them out properly and send them back. And of course the state went into an economic recoil because of the pandemic and people were worried about the money.”

Challenging absolutely, but ultimately successful. On November 13, ten days after the election, Prop 14 was declared the winner.

As our President and CEO, Dr. Maria Millan says, we went from an agency getting ready to close its doors to one ramping up for a whole new adventure.

“We faced many challenges in 2020. CIRM’s continued existence was hinging on the passage of a new bond initiative and we began the year uncertain if it would even make it on the ballot.  We had a plan in place to wind down and close operations should additional funding not materialize.  During the unrest and challenges brought by 2020, and functioning in a virtual format, we retained our core group of talented individuals who were able to mobilize our emergency covid research funding round, continue to advance our important research programs and clinical trials and initiate the process of strategic planning in the event that CIRM was reauthorized through a new bond initiative. Fortunately, we planned for success and Proposition 14 passed against all odds!”

“When California said “Yes,” the CIRM team was positioned to launch the next Era of CIRM! We have recruited top talent to grow the team and have developed a new strategic plan and evolved our mission:  Accelerating world-class science to deliver transformative regenerative medicine treatments to a diverse California and worldwide in an equitable manner.” 

And since that close call we have been very busy. In the last year we have hired 16 new employees, everyone from a new General Counsel to the Director of Finance, and more are on the way as we ramp up our ability to turn our new vision into a reality.

We have also been working hard to ensure we could continue to fund groundbreaking research from the early-stage Discovery work, to testing therapies in patients in clinical trials. Altogether our Board has approved almost $250 million in 56 new awards since December 2020. That includes:

Clinical – $84M (9 awards)

Translational – $15M (3 awards)

Discovery – $13M (11 awards)

Education – $138M (33 awards)

We have also enrolled more than 360 new patients in clinical trials that we fund or that are being carried out in the CIRM Alpha Stem Cell Clinic network.

This is a good start, but we know we have a lot more work to do in the coming years.

The last year has flown by and brought more than its fair share of challenges. But the CIRM team has shown that it can rise to those, in person and remotely, and meet them head on. We are already looking forward to 2022. We’ve got a lot of work to do.

A conversation with Bob Klein about the past, present and future of CIRM

/ Kevin McCormack / Leave a comment
Bob Klein

Anyone who knows anything about CIRM knows about Bob Klein. He’s the main author and driving force behind both Proposition 71 and Proposition 14, the voter-approved ballot initiatives that first created and then refunded CIRM. It’s safe to say that without Bob there’d be no CIRM.

Recently we had the great good fortune to sit down with Bob to chat about the challenges of getting a proposition on the ballot in a time of pandemic and electoral pandemonium, what he thinks CIRM’s biggest achievements are (so far) and what his future plans are.

You can hear that conversation in the latest episode of our podcast, “Talking ’bout (re) Generation”.

Enjoy.

Thank you

/ Kevin McCormack / 5 Comments
Bob Klein

These last few days have been interesting on so many levels. First the presidential race has kept the nation on tenterhooks. Closer to home the vote count for Proposition 14, to refunded CIRM, has been painstakingly slow (by the way, painstakingly means “with great care and thoroughness” for which we thank all the vote counters). But now, finally, happily, we have a verdict.

WE WON.

 It was close, desperately so. In the end the Associated Press called the race with the count at 51% yes, to 49% no. You can understand why so many of us were so nervous for so long. But now we have something to celebrate.

As Jonathan Thomas, JD, PhD, the Chair of our Board said: “We are thrilled to see Proposition 14 approved by the voters of California. We are proud of what we have achieved so far – the cures and therapies we helped develop, the billions we brought into the state in additional investments, and the tens of thousands of jobs we created – and we look forward to continuing that work.

“We are honored by the trust the people of California have placed in us, and by the support of our extraordinary patient advocate community and by the many Chambers of Commerce around California who have all recognized our historic achievements.

“We are already working on ways to repay that trust and bring stem cell and regenerative therapies to all the people of this great state, particularly for communities that have traditionally been overlooked or underserved.” 

In a news release on the Californians for Cures website, Bob and Danielle Klein, who led the Yes on 14 campaign, were understandably delighted:  

“The success of Prop. 14 sends a clear message from California voters that one of the most important investments our state can make is in the future health of our families. Over the past decade, California has made incredibly thoughtful and impactful investments in developing stem cell therapies and cures for diseases and conditions like diabetes, cancer, blindness, Parkinson’s, paralysis and many more; now we know this progress and work to mitigate human suffering, restore health and improve the human condition will continue. A special thank you to California’s voters and our supporters in passing this critical measure. Today would not have been possible without our historically unprecedented coalition of patient advocate organizations and individuals – the heart and soul of this campaign – who worked tirelessly to overcome all obstacles and help secure a victory for patients and their families, and deliver hope to those searching for a cure for generations to come.”

To all of you who voted for us, thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

To all the people who worked so hard to get Prop 14 passed, thank you. We are indebted to you.

OK, gotta go. We have work to do.

The story behind the book about the Stem Cell Agency

/ Kevin McCormack / Leave a comment

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Don Reed at his book launch: Photo by Todd Dubnicoff

WHY I WROTE “CALIFORNIA CURES”  By Don C. Reed

It was Wednesday, June 13th, 2018, the launch day for my new book, “CALIFORNIA CURES: How the California Stem Cell Research Program is Fighting Your Incurable Disease!”

As I stood in front of the audience of scientists, CIRM staff members, patient advocates, I thought to myself, “these are the kind of people who built the California stem cell program.” Wheelchair warriors Karen Miner and Susan Rotchy, sitting in the front row, typified the determination and resolve typical of those who fought to get the program off the ground. Now I was about to ask them to do it one more time.

My first book about CIRM was “STEM CELL BATTLES: Proposition 71 and Beyond. It told the story of  how we got started: the initial struggles—and a hopeful look into the future.

Imagine being in a boat on the open sea and there was a patch of green on the horizon. You could be reasonably certain those were the tops of coconut trees, and that there was an island attached—but all you could see was a patch of green.

Today we can see the island. We are not on shore yet, but it is real.

“CALIFORNIA CURES” shows what is real and achieved: the progress the scientists have made– and why we absolutely must continue.

For instance, in the third row were three little girls, their parents and grandparents.

One of them was Evangelina “Evie” Vaccaro, age 5. She was alive today because of CIRM, who had funded the research and the doctor who saved her.

Don Reed and Evie and Alysia

Don Reed, Alysia Vaccaro and daughter Evie: Photo by Yimy Villa

Evie was born with Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID) commonly called the “bubble baby” disease. It meant she could never go outside because her immune system could not protect her.  Her mom and dad had to wear hospital masks to get near her, even just to give her a hug.

But Dr. Donald Kohn of UCLA operated on the tiny girl, taking out some of her bone marrow, repairing the genetic defect that caused SCID, then putting the bone marrow back.

Today, “Evie” glowed with health, and was cheerfully oblivious to the fuss she raised.

I was actually a little intimidated by her, this tiny girl who so embodied the hopes and dreams of millions. What a delight to hear her mother Alysia speak, explaining  how she helped Evie understand her situation:  she had “unicorn blood” which could help other little children feel better too.

This was CIRM in action, fighting to save lives and ease suffering.

If people really knew what is happening at CIRM, they would absolutely have to support it. That’s why I write, to get the message out in bite-size chunks.

You might know the federal statistics—133 million children, women and men with one or more chronic diseases—at a cost of $2.9 trillion dollars last year.

But not enough people know California’s battle to defeat those diseases.

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Adrienne Shapiro at the book launch: Photo by Todd Dubnicoff

Champion patient advocate Adrienne Shapiro was with us, sharing a little of the stress a parent feels if her child has sickle cell anemia, and the science which gives us hope:  the CIRM-funded doctor who cured Evie is working on sickle cell now.

Because of CIRM, newly paralyzed people now have a realistic chance to recover function: a stem cell therapy begun long ago (pride compels me to mention it was started by the Roman Reed Spinal Cord Injury Research Act, named after my son), is using stem cells to re-insulate damaged nerves in the spine.  Six people were recently given the stem cell treatment pioneered by Hans Keirstead, (currently running for Congress!)  and all six experienced some level of recovery, in a few cases regaining some use of their arms hands.

Are you old enough to remember the late Annette Funicello and Richard Pryor?  These great entertainers were stricken by multiple sclerosis, a slow paralysis.  A cure did not come in time for them. But the international cooperation between California’s Craig Wallace and Australia’s Claude Bernard may help others: by  re-insulating MS-damaged nerves like what was done with spinal cord injury.

My brother David shattered his leg in a motorcycle accident. He endured multiple operations, had steel rods and plates inserted into his leg. Tomorrow’s accident recovery may be easier.  At Cedars-Sinai, Drs. Dan Gazit and Hyun Bae are working to use stem cells to regrow the needed bone.

My wife suffers arthritis in her knees. Her pain is so great she tries to make only one trip a day down and up the stairs of our home.  The cushion of cartilage in her knees is worn out, so it is bone on bone—but what if that living cushion could be restored? Dr. Denis Evseenko of UCLA is attempting just that.

As I spoke, on the wall behind me was a picture of a beautiful woman, Rosie Barrero, who had been left blind by retinitis pigmentosa. Rosie lost her sight when her twin children were born—and regained it when they were teenagers—seeing them for the first time, thanks to Dr. Henry Klassen, another scientist funded by CIRM.

What about cancer? That miserable condition has killed several of my family, and I was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer myself. I had everything available– surgery, radiation, hormone shots which felt like harpoons—hopefully I am fine, but who knows for sure?

Irv Weissman, the friendly bear genius of Stanford, may have the answer to cancer.  He recognized there were cancer stem cells involved. Nobody believed him for a while, but it is now increasingly accepted that these cancer stem cells have a coating of protein which makes them invisible to the body’s defenses. The Weissman procedure may peel off that “cloak of invisibility” so the immune system can find and kill them all—and thereby cure their owner.

What will happen when CIRM’s funding runs out next year?

If we do nothing, the greatest source of stem cell research funding will be gone. We need to renew CIRM. Patients all around the world are depending on us.

The California stem cell program was begun and led by Robert N. “Bob” Klein. He not only led the campaign, was its chief writer and number one donor, but he was also the first Chair of the Board, serving without pay for the first six years. It was an incredible burden; he worked beyond exhaustion routinely.

Would he be willing to try it again, this time to renew the funding of a successful program? When I asked him, he said:

“If California polls support the continuing efforts of CIRM—then I am fully committed to a 2020 initiative to renew the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM).”

Shakespeare said it best in his famous “to be or not to be” speech, asking if it is “nobler …to endure the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles—and by opposing, end them”.

Should we passively endure chronic disease and disability—or fight for cures?

California’s answer was the stem cell program CIRM—and continuing CIRM is the reason I wrote this book.

Don C. Reed is the author of “CALIFORNIA CURES: How the California Stem Cell Program is Fighting Your Incurable Disease!”, from World Scientific Publishing, Inc., publisher of the late Professor Stephen Hawking.

For more information, visit the author’s website: www.stemcellbattles.com

 

Stem Cell Awareness Day: Past, Present, Future

/ Kevin McCormack / 1 Comment

In 2008, the then California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger  declared Sept. 25 to be Stem Cell Awareness Day. In the proclamation he said, ”The discoveries being made today in our Golden State will have a great impact on many around the world for generations to come.”

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Bob Klein (Left), Arnold Schwarzenegger (Middle), Don Reed (Right) in 2008.

In the years since, we have moved steadily towards turning those words into reality and using Stem Cell Awareness Day, now celebrated on the second Wednesday in October, as a symbol of the progress being made, not just in California but around the world.

Yesterday, for example, at a public event at UC Davis in Sacramento, Dr. Jan Nolta told an audience of patients, patient advocates, researchers and stem cell supporters that “we are part of a new era in medicine, one where it will one day be routine for prescriptions to be written for stem cell treatments for many different diseases.”

Those sentiments were echoed by Jonathan Thomas, Chair of the CIRM Board, who said:

“This is a time of truly extraodinary medical science.  We are lucky because, in our lifetime, we are going to see many of the biggest maladies plaguing people cured, in part because of developments in regenerative medicine. Every week you read about extraordinary developments in medicine and often those are here in California.”

In the early years Stem Cell Awareness Day was very much a creation of CIRM. We worked closely with our partners in academia and industry to host or stage events around the state. In 2009 for example, more than 40 CIRM grantees went to high schools in California, talking about stem cell research to more than 3,000 students. We also coordinated with researchers in Canada and Australia to create a global community of supporters.

We even hosted a poetry competition. No, really, we did. So, clearly not every idea we had back then was a winner.

These days CIRM doesn’t play as prominent a role in organizing these events for a very simple reason. We don’t have to. They have become such a popular part of the scientific calendar that individual institutions and schools organize their own events, without any pushing or prodding from us (though we are always happy to help when asked).

At UC Irvine this afternoon there is an Open House where you can take a self-guided tour of the facility, meet some of the scientists and watch lab demonstrations.

This weekend the UC  Berkeley’s Student Society of Stem Cell Research (SSSCR) is hosting its 5th annual Stem Cell Conference: Culturing a Stem Cell Community. This conference aims to bring together different aspects of stem cell research, from science to advocacy, to demonstrate the growth and success of the field. You can RSVP on Eventbrite (tickets cost a small fee of $7 or $12 including lunch to support the cost of the SSSCR conference)

The Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco just posted two new videos to its YouTube site:

In the early days of CIRM, Stem Cell Awareness Day was a valuable way for us to talk directly to the people of California – the ones who created CIRM. We felt it was important to let them know how their money was being spend and about the progress being made in stem cell research. And in the early years that progress was slower than all of us would have liked. Today, it’s a very different situation with CIRM now having funded 40 projects in clinical trials (and a goal of funding dozens more in the coming years) and with advances being made every day. We still reach out to our supporters and the patient advocate community but now we do it year round through our blog, social media and public events like the one yesterday at UC Davis.

While we are not as “hands on” as we were in the past we are still more than happy to provide tools for groups or organizations who want to hold their own stem cell awareness event – and it doesn’t have to be on October 11th, it can be any day of the year. Visit our Education Portal, Patient Resources page and video archive for various teaching tools.

Emotions and gratitude at changing of the guard at Stem Cell Agency

/ Kevin McCormack / Leave a comment

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Randy Mills and his family

Randy, as regular readers of this blog know, is, or rather was, the President and CEO of CIRM. James Harrison is less well known to the outside world but his imprint on CIRM, as our General Counsel and one of the key figures behind Proposition 71, is even bigger than that of Randy’s.

Randy came to the stem cell agency a little over three years ago and in pretty quick order completely refashioned us. Under his guidance CIRM 2.0 became a sleek, streamlined funding machine, turning what had been an almost two-year process from application to funding into one that took just 120 days. He revamped the frequency with which we offered specific programs, making it more predictable and so easier for researchers to know when the next round was coming up. He helped usher in a new Strategic Plan that is a blueprint for us until 2020.

But the changes he implemented were not just about the way we worked, it was also about how we worked and particularly how we worked together. He turned the agency into a true team, one where everyone felt they not only had a role to play but that what they did was important in determining the success of the agency.

Not surprisingly there was no shortage of people ready to praise him. CIRM Board Chair Jonathan Thomas (JT) thanked Randy for turning the agency around, transforming it into an organization that even the National Institutes of Health (NIH) now looks to as a model (more on that in a subsequent blog). Vice Chair Art Torres thanked Randy for his leadership and for his compassion toward patients, always putting them first in everything that he and the agency did. Board member Sherry Lansing called Randy “a genius and visionary”.

But perhaps the most moving tributes came from patients advocates.

Don Reed said; “When I first met Randy I didn’t like him. I thought CIRM was one of the best, if not the best, organization out there and who was this person to say they were going to come in and make it better. Well, you did Randy and we are all so very grateful to you for that.”

Adrienne Shapiro from Axis Advocacy, an organization dedicated to finding a cure for sickle cell disease, presented Randy with the “Heart of a Mother” award, thanking him for his tireless support of patients and their families.

Jake Javier, a participant in the Asterias spinal cord injury trial, wrote a note saying: “You positively affect so many through your amazing funding efforts for life changing research, and should be very proud of that. But something I will always remember is how personal and genuine you were while doing it. I hope you got the chance to meet as many of the people you helped as possible because I know they would remember the same.”

Randy – who is leaving to become President/CEO of the National Marrow Donor/Be The Match program – was clearly deeply moved by the tributes, but reminded everyone that he was leaving us in good hands. The Board named Dr. Maria Millan as the interim President and CEO, pending a meeting of a search committee to determine the steps for appointing a permanent replacement.

Randy praised Maria for her intelligence, compassion and vision:

“Maria Millan has been a great partner in all that we have achieved at CIRM. She was a key part of developing the Strategic Plan; she  understands it inside out and has been responsible for administering it. She is a wonderful leader and is going to be absolutely phenomenal.”

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James Harrison (left) with CIRM Board members Jonathan Thomas and Bert Lubin

The tributes for James Harrison were ever bit as moving. James has been a part of CIRM since before there was a CIRM. He helped draft Proposition 71, the ballot initiative that created the stem cell agency, and has played a key role since as General Counsel.

JT: “James has been a part of literally every decision and move that CIRM has made in its entire history. He’s been integral in everything. When I first came to CIRM, I was told by Bob Klein (JT’s predecessor as Chair) ‘Don’t brush your teeth without checking with James first’ suggesting a level of knowledge and expertise that was admirable.”

Jeff Sheehy “We would not be here without James. He organized the defense when we were sued by our opponents in the early days, through the various leadership challenges we had, all of the legal difficulties we had James was there to guide us and it’s been nothing short of extraordinary. Your brilliance and steadiness is amazing. While we are screaming and pulling our hair out there was James. Just saying his name makes me feel more relaxed.”

Sherry Lansing: “One thing I never worried about was our ethics, because you protected us at all times. You have such strong ethical values, you are always calm and rational and no matter what was going on you were always the rock who could explain things to everyone and deal with it with integrity.”

James is leaving to take a more active role in the law firm Remcho, Johansen & Purcell, where he is partner. Succeeding him as General Counsel is Scott Tocher, who has been at CIRM almost as long as James.

Randy; “To have someone like Scott come in and replace someone who wrote Proposition 71 speaks for the bench strength of the agency and how we are in very good hands.”

Art Torres joked “Scott has been waiting as long as Prince Charles has to take over the reins and we’re delighted to be able to work with him.”

We wish Randy and James great good luck in their next adventures.

 

Taking stock: ten years of the stem cell agency, progress and promise for the future

/ Kevin McCormack / 1 Comment

Under some circumstances ten years can seem like a lifetime. But when lives are at stake, ten years can fly by in a flash.

Ten years ago the people of California created the stem cell agency when they overwhelmingly approved Proposition 71, giving us $3 billion to fund and support stem cell research in the state.

In 2004 stem cell science held enormous potential but the field was still quite young. Back then the biology of the cells was not well understood, and our ability to convert stem cells into other cell types for potential therapies was limited. Today, less than 8 years after we actually started funding research, we have ten projects that are expected to be approved for clinical trials by the end of the year, including work in heart disease and cancer, HIV/AIDS and diabetes. So clearly great progress has been made.

Dean Carmen Puliafito and the panel at the Tenth Anniversary event at USC

Dean Carmen Puliafito and the panel at the Tenth Anniversary event at USC

Yesterday we held an event at the University of Southern California (USC) to mark those ten years, to chart where we have come from, and to look to where we are going. It was a gathering of all those who have, as they say, skin in the game: researchers, patients and patient advocates.

The event was held at the Eli and Edythe Broad CIRM Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research. As Dr. Carmen Puliafito, Dean of USC’s Keck School of Medicine noted, without CIRM the building would not even exist.

“With this funding, our researchers, and researchers in 11 other facilities throughout the state, gained a dedicated space to hunt for cures for some of the most pernicious diseases in the world, including heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.”

Dr. Dhruv Sareen from Cedars-Sinai praised CIRM for creating a whole new industry in the state:

“What Silicon Valley has done for technology, CIRM is doing for stem cell research in California.”

One of the beneficiaries of that new industry has been ViaCyte, a San Diego-based company that is now in clinical trials with a small implantable device containing stem cell-derived cells to treat type 1 diabetes. ViaCyte’s Dr. Eugene Brandon said without CIRM none of that would have been possible.

“In 2008 it was extremely hard for a small biotech company to get funding for the kind of work we were doing. Without that support, without that funding from CIRM, I don’t know where this work would be today.”

As with everything we do, at the heart of it are the patients. Fred Lesikar says when he had a massive heart attack and woke up in the hospital his nurse told him about a measure they use to determine the scale of the attack. When he asked how big his attack had been, she replied, “I’ve never seen numbers that large before. Ever.”

Fred told of leaving the hospital a diminished person, unable to do most basic things because his heart had been so badly damaged. But after getting a stem cell-based therapy using his own heart cells he is now as active as ever, something he says doesn’t just affect him.

“It’s not just patients who benefit from these treatments, families do too. It changes the life of the patient, and the lives of all those around them. I feel like I’m back to normal and I’m so grateful for CIRM and Cedars-Sinai for helping me get here.”

The team behind that approach, based at Cedars-Sinai, is now in a much larger clinical trial and we are funding it.

The last word in the event was left to Bob Klein, who led the drive to get Proposition 71 passed and who was the agency’s first Chair. He said looking at what has happened in the last ten years: “it is beyond what I could have imagined.”

Bob noted that the field has not been without its challenges and problems to overcome, and that more challenges and problems almost certainly lie in the future:

“But the genius of the people of this state is reflected in their commitment to this cause, and we should all be eternally grateful for their vision in supporting research that will save and transform people’s lives.”