[BrainTop]

January 17, 2005

New Jersey Faces Tough Competition for Stem Cell Scientists

By LAURA MANSNERUS

TRENTON, Jan. 14 - While the federal government has sharply limited research on embryonic stem cells, casting it as a moral issue, governors around the country are moving aggressively to push the research forward, spending millions, seeking to lure top scientists to their states and planning state-of-the-art research facilities.

Last fall, California stepped to the forefront when voters there agreed to borrow $3 billion over 10 years to finance stem cell research. And in New Jersey last week, Acting Gov. Richard J. Codey entered what he called "the race for the cure" by proposing to spend $380 million on research. New Jersey's planned spending gives the state a lock on second place in the stem cell research race, behind California, but Mr. Codey warned it might not last.

"We have to act aggressively," he said, "because other states like Wisconsin and Illinois are right behind us."

In fact, everyone is chasing California in the competition for talent, money and recognition.

"There are more dollars now going into the field than there would be if President Bush in 2001 had thrown the gates wide open," said Daniel Perry, the president of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, which according to its Web site includes some 90 research universities and medical advocacy groups, including Harvard, Johns Hopkins and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International. "What he sought to starve has turned out to be very well fed."

At the very least, competing states are trying to keep their own researchers from joining a migration to the West Coast. At the most, they are cultivating their own biotech valleys, already thriving in ZIP codes around Boston, San Francisco and the Research Triangle in North Carolina, to name a few.

The Illinois legislature is considering a tax on elective cosmetic surgery to raise $100 million a year for stem cell research. In Wisconsin, Gov. Jim Doyle has pledged a $375 million institute for biomedical research, including stem cell projects. Connecticut's governor, M. Jodi Rell, wants to allocate $10 million to $20 million to stem cell research. About 10 other states have similar, if less specific, proposals.

In Albany, several legislators are advocating proposals for state support of embryonic stem cell research, although others want to join a handful of other states that ban embryonic stem cell research altogether.

Dr. Wise Young of Rutgers, a founding director of the New Jersey institute, mentioned the possibility of poaching scientists from New York. "Right in the middle of Manhattan is the highest concentration of scientists anywhere in the world in biology and life sciences. New York would be well advised to start a program, or else they will start moving," he said.

New Jersey has an advantage, even over California, in its timetable. Construction of the Stem Cell Institute of New Jersey is to start this summer in New Brunswick, state officials said, and the directors of the project are already recruiting its staff of 150 researchers.

In his State of the State address, Mr. Codey pledged $150 million in unspent bond money to finance construction. He is seeking voter approval this fall for $230 million in bonding for grant money.

Mr. Codey's predecessor, James E. McGreevey, made New Jersey the first state to commit public funds to stem cell research and won legislative approval for the institute last year with seed money of $9.5 million.

At the time that figure drew grateful attention from researchers around the country. Less than a year later, the spending has risen exponentially. Adding up expected commitments by state governments, "you're talking $400 million or $500 million a year in stem cell research," said Mr. Perry of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research.

The surge comes in part because of President Bush's ban on federal financing for research involving embryonic stem cells, except for a few colonies that were in laboratories when he issued the order in 2001. Since stem cells are ordinarily taken from embryos discarded by fertility clinics, abortion opponents had raised objections.

California's billions have already skewed the market for talent.

Michael Manganiello, the director of government relations for the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, which is based in New Jersey, said that young scientists and postdoctoral students "can set up in California in a minute."

He added, " I know I would."

"If New Jersey can come up with the $400 million, I think it makes them a player," Mr. Manganiello continued. "It definitely encourages scientists to stay and young scientists to come."

One stem cell scientist who moved to California, Dr. Evan Snyder of the Burnham Institute in La Jolla, said state support moves institutions before the institutions draw people. Dr. Snyder was at Harvard University in 2002, when California became the first state to enact a law protecting stem cell research. Though no state money was attached, Dr. Snyder said "several institutions made decisions they were going to start Manhattan Project-type programs." Burnham did, and hired Dr. Snyder as the program's director.

Others have followed, many researchers say, although the only reports they can offer are anecdotal. But Dr. Snyder said, "I don't think it's going to be a brain drain like a vacuum cleaner sucking people out of the East."

California already had the biggest pool of private biotechnology companies and several academic medical centers, which will now compete for $300 million a year in state funds. New Jersey's model is different, bringing most of the researchers under one roof, affiliated with Rutgers University and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

What every state covets, of course, are the clusters of private companies that grow up around medical centers and the investment they bring. It is hard to forecast investment in private stem cell ventures, however, said G. Steven Burrill, the chief executive officer of Burrill & Company, a biotechnology investment firm in San Francisco. Last year, Mr. Burrill said, about $5 billion in venture capital went into biotechnology, but only $30 million to $50 million to companies specializing in stem cell work.

"Over time it will be going up," he said. "Immediately, no."

The trend to public research by the states, while fostering innovation, may also cause duplication and splintering in research, Mr. Perry said.

"It's going to create a crazy-quilt pattern across the U.S.," he said. In some states, stem cell research will flourish, he said. Other states, he added, "are going to criminalize the same research, where you could get thrown in jail for moving a cell nucleus to the wrong place."

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company