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The California stem cell agency is nearing the end of its “normal” life span, and the topic of its future comes up with some regularity nowadays within the Golden State's stem cell community.

It is a tiny community that has benefited to the tune of $1.9 billion so far from the passage of Prop. 71, the ballot measure that created the agency nine years ago this month.

The latest public discussion of what UC Davis stem cell researcher Paul Knoepfler has dubbed “CIRM 2.0” came on Knoepfler's blog last week and a short time later on the agency's own blog. CIRM is the acronym for the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the formal name of the agency.

Predictably the most recent discussion, as generally occurs, emphasized the importance of the science and promise that it poses. Rarely heard, however, is whether the agency's efforts have been worth $6 billion (CIRM's projected cost including interest) and whether spending billions more over another decade ranks among the top ten priorities, for example, facing the state during the same period. That is...