CGS-authored
It's not very surprising that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other state leaders have anointed Robert Klein II, a Bay Area real estate magnate, to chair a California stem cell research institute that will dispense $3 billion in taxpayer money over 10 years.
After all, Klein helped bankroll the stem cell initiative, Proposition 71; he wrote the job description for the position he will soon fill; and he contributed campaign money to three of the four state officials who nominated him as chairman.
With that kind of inside track, how could he lose?
The bigger question is whether Klein will also anoint the vice chair of the Independent Citizens Oversight Committee - the panel that has sole discretion over the $3 billion in state funds. Klein wants the committee to nominate Edward Penhoet as vice chair. Penhoet is a founder and board member of Chiron, the biotech company whose British plant botched the flu vaccine this year. He is also chair of Metabolex, a firm that is developing drugs for diabetes - the kind of company that is likely to seek...
After all, Klein helped bankroll the stem cell initiative, Proposition 71; he wrote the job description for the position he will soon fill; and he contributed campaign money to three of the four state officials who nominated him as chairman.
With that kind of inside track, how could he lose?
The bigger question is whether Klein will also anoint the vice chair of the Independent Citizens Oversight Committee - the panel that has sole discretion over the $3 billion in state funds. Klein wants the committee to nominate Edward Penhoet as vice chair. Penhoet is a founder and board member of Chiron, the biotech company whose British plant botched the flu vaccine this year. He is also chair of Metabolex, a firm that is developing drugs for diabetes - the kind of company that is likely to seek...