NYT: Stem Cell Researchers Feel the Pull of the Golden State

[DeepModem Mom]

Stem Cell Researchers Feel the Pull of the Golden State
By NICHOLAS WADE
Published: May 22, 2005


Up and down the East Coast, stem cell researchers are feeling the tug of a powerful, invisible force. It is a wave of recruiting calls from institutions in California seeking to expand their research programs with help from Proposition 71, the state's $3 billion stem cell initiative.

Money from the initiative, which voters approved in November, has not even started flowing. But the mere promise of it has already proved an enticement, particularly for those in states like Massachusetts, where restrictions are being debated.

"Prop. 71 and the discussion going on in Massachusetts made me think about where would be the best place for doing this research in the U.S.," said Dr. Stefan Heller, who studies the stem cells of the inner ear. Dr. Heller is about to move to Stanford University from Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, Mass.

Recruiters in California say they are finding unaccustomed ease in persuading recruits to overlook California's sky-high real estate costs....

***

No one knows how many jobs will be created by the initiative. But efforts like Dr. Kriegstein's are sending chills down the spines of laboratory directors in the East. "I'm scared to death that some of my people will go," said Dr. John D. Gearhart, co-director of stem cell biology at Johns Hopkins University....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/22/national/22stem.html

[davidinalameda]

1. come on out

the weather is great and we need the jobs and everything that goes with them