The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine doesn’t have a home, any money, or even a single employee, but the head of the new state agency expects to be awarding its first grants for stem cell research by May. “We have a responsibility to move as quickly as possible,” Robert Klein said Thursday. “I admit that I am an optimist.” The institute was created by California voters in November when they approved a $3 billion bond to fund stem cell research over the next decade. The 29-member committee appointed to manage the institute met Thursday and began to rectify the mind-numbing bureaucratic problems that need to be solved before the agency can be launched in full.
