Hello, welcome. I'm Margaret Lewis. I'm the Executive Director of the Wisconsin Academy of
Sciences, Arts and Letters. We're just delighted that you're
and Law Professor Alta Charo, who will be speaking to us about all here to have a conversation tonight with us with Bioethics
the Tales from the Other Biotech Frontier.
If you're joining us for the
first time tonight at a Wisconsin Academy Evening event, this offers us a brief
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joined by several of the Academy
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begin. Just one more thing before we
I'd like to thank our very generous sponsors, the Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation,
the University of Wisconsin Research Foundation,
the UW-Madison, the John and Sally Mielke Family Fund,
and many individual donors
and members that are here in the audience tonight. We'd also like to, on behalf of
the friends and supporters that can't be here this evening, to
thank Wisconsin Public Television, for making this
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for rebroadcast to people around the state.
like to again welcome you to So without any more adieu, we'd
this wonderful program. If you'd like to be helpful in sponsoring future programs,
please feel free to see me after
Dies, who will introduce our this program. Now I'd like to introduce our special events director, Laura
speaker tonight. Thanks, Laura.
And thank you everyone for being >> Thank you, Margaret.
with us tonight. Regarding tonight's program,
after Alta's presentation. there will be time for questions
Professor Alta Charo received her BA in Biology from Harvard University and her JD from
Columbia University Law School. She is the Warren P. Knowles
where she is on the faculty of Professor of Law in Bioethics at the UW-Madison,
the Law School and the Medical School's Department of Medical
serves on the faculty of the UW Masters in Biotechnology Studies History and Bioethics, and also
program. Wow, that's a lot!
Her public service career includes membership on the
National Institutes of Health, Human Embryo Research Panel,
and five years on President Clinton's National Bioethics
Advisory Commission, where she worked on reports concerning
research ethics, cloning and
Group of the California Institute for Regenerative In 2005, she was appointed to the Ethics Standards Working
draft the National Academy's Medicine. Also in 2005, she helped to
Guidelines for Embryonic Stem Cell Research, which have become the national voluntary standard
for ethical research in this
field. In 2006, she was appointed to co-chair the National Academy's
Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research Advisory Committee.
Academy's Institute of Medicine. She has been elected into membership in the National
And we at the Wisconsin Academy are proud that she was elected as a Distinguished Fellow, as
well. And if all of that commitment to
those work groups, commissions and fellowships isn't enough to
keep her busy, and bring her
neighbors out tonight, because they don't see her, I understand--
( laughter )
Alta spent last year on the west coast as a visiting professor at the University
of California-Berkeley School of Law, where she taught courses
as a faculty advisor to their new Stem Cell Fellows Program. on pharmaceutical development and stem cell policy, and served
outside interests, not the Alta is a native of Brooklyn, New York, and has many
least of which are poker, roller coasters, Jane Austen novels
and Star Trek.
We look forward to Alta's reflections on the Golden State, and how Wisconsin's policy
makers can keep our state competitive.
The Other Biotech Frontier. Please welcome Alta Charo. We are pleased she is with us tonight to discuss Tales From
( applause ) >> Thank you.
You're welcome. >> I've got to tell you that
she wasn't kidding about the neighbors.
But she also didn't mention the colleagues and the faculty
research. So for those of you who know members all around the campus that actually do stem cell
everything I'm about to say, I excuse you, if you'd like to
leave early.
And I will address myself to the one or two people left in the room, who may not know all these
things. It was a very valuable year that
I spent in California, if only because it was a chance to be on
the other side of those really
commercials. irritatingly entertaining commercials that we've all come to know called the Happy Cows
I'm sure you know about these commercials. Usually, with one or two bulls
that are going, "Hey, baby," and
some very cute looking cows. And always, of course, the guys do not quite get the cows, but
nonetheless, they end by saying,
that great cheese comes from happy cows. And happy cows come from
California. My goal here tonight is to tell you that not all cows in
( laughter ) California are all that happy.
Although all cows in California indeed are very
So, I would like to spend my well-off.
time tonight talking about the differences between being well-off and being happy, when
it comes to stem cell research. I'm going to try to keep my comments relatively brief.
who thinks in 55-minute units. That's in terms of a professor
Because usually, the question and answer session is far more interesting than the main
presentation. So I'm going to try to outline
some things that might spark some interest in conversation
following the talk. I think all of us here in Wisconsin are familiar with the fact that this is, of course,
one of the great centers of embryonic stem cell research in the United States.
not entirely, but largely due to And that, of course, is largely,
the really path-breaking work that Jamie Thomson did in moving this field from what had been
decades of work on the mouse
model, where the embryos are easy to use, but morphologically
human embryo, and therefore posing different challenges. distinctly different from the
and then from there into humans, And then moving that research first into non-human primates
so that by the mid and late-1990s, we in Wisconsin,
And embryonic stem cell research had a real lead in this field.
had been discussed for decades as potentially one of the most
medicine. Because embryonic stem cells, which all of you probably know exciting developments in
flexible, because they have the capacity for development into such a wide variety of human already, because they are so
valuable laboratory tool for the tissues, provide an enormously
study of human disease and the study of tissue development.
study of drugs and their They provide a platform for the
toxicities and their potential for therapeutic application.
looking for ways to help our They provide and avenue for
bodies heal themselves, or to replace the organs and tissues that have been damaged from
disease.
So for years there had been this discussion. Indeed, Laura very kindly
mentioned my work on the NIH
Human Embryo Research Panel, which dates back to 1993, before
And that report that we wrote at Jamie's work.
research, a window that closed a time where there had been a short window of opportunity for federal funding of embryo
before the research ever did get funded, focused in large part,
of using embryo research as a way to get to embryonic stem specifically on the possibility
cell research. So in that sense, this had been
long discussed. And finally here in Wisconsin was brought to the earliest stages of fruition.
Despite the fact that we had
therefore a tremendous, kind of psychological lead, we had a technical lead, we had at the
time, under Governor Thompson,
somebody who saw this as an avenue toward economic development for a state
characterized by high literacy
rate, nearly universally good education, and therefore a workforce poised to move into
the knowledge economy.
Despite that fact, Wisconsin has not been a leader in the social and financial mechanisms that
are needed to really promote
this work. And part of that is due to the
many others, is somewhat fact that this state, like so
paralyzed at the legislative level by the debate surrounding abortion.
Because of a state legislature
two Houses that were controlled by a party that was most closely favor abortion rights and those who oppose them, because we had
aligned with those who opposed abortion rights, it really
wasn't possible at the
legislative level to see our leaders come together in order
for this field in the form of affirmatively funding it above to provide some positive impetus
and beyond the kinds of monies that are available through the
usual governmental funding
The National Institutes of mechanisms. And that governmental mechanism is the federal government.
Health has a funding program that dwarfs the funding program of the entire collection of
nation states in the European Union combined. When the NIH doesn't fund the field, it starves the field.
And because of the politics around embryonic stem cell
research at the federal level, that's precisely what happened.
The NIH withdrew all but a small
amount of funding for a subset of research possibilities in
with no federal governmental this area, and left researchers
body to turn to for work on any of the lines that had been developed after 2001.
Our state did not walk into that
gap with legislative funding. Certainly, the UW Foundation has actually put a lot of effort
into developing a private donor base. And they've actually appointed
about looking for private funders who will work to give grants to specific researchers, or to the stem cell program as a
whole here on campus. Nonetheless, private donations
cannot compete with governmental funding.
In addition, Wisconsin's been characterized by occasional moments of what is perceived
as actual hostility to this field. within the biotechnology sector
Cloning research, which involves Now cloning is not the same thing as stem cell research.
taking a cell, for example, from your skin, and using it as a
customized line of stem cells that will have the same genetic characteristics, is essentially a way of creating a specialized
stem cell line. There are not a lot of
experiments that need this particular technique.
Most stem cell lines will come
efforts, like couples using In Vitro fertilization. But cloning has certainly caught conclusion of reproductive
because of its association with human reproduction, and because of the fact that it creates an the public's imagination, both
morally and biologically entity that for many people is
indistinguishable from an ordinary embryo. So twice our legislature has
moved to pass bills that would
that would be studied in the criminalize, not the use of cloning to make a baby, but the use of cloning to make an entity
laboratory for several days, and used to create a customized stem
So-called research cloning, or cell line.
non-reproductive cloning was the focus of this effort to criminalize the research.
Now, as far as I know, there is not yet anybody on this campus
who is trying to do that work, nor anybody in the state that's
actually trying to do that work.
So these bills did not, at the time they were being debated, actually threaten any scientist
in Wisconsin. But they did say something about
a political judgment that science needs to be censored and the atmosphere for science in Wisconsin and the potential for
restricted, not because of its ability to harm an existing
individual who can feel and think, but instead because its
association with arguments around embryo research and
abortion. That created an atmosphere that can be read as hostile, or at least threatening for the world
of science. And certainly, other states have
moved to actually enact such laws.
Such states including our neighbors, Michigan and Iowa, although Iowa eventually
effect on the scientific withdrew the law because of its
community. North and South Dakota, New Hampshire and a few others.
So in Wisconsin, we had no
legislative action to fund the research of any type. We had a history of efforts to
criminalize at least one related
area of research, which set up an atmosphere of at least some
either the scientist or the investment community. And with this, we also lost the dopportunity to regulate this
research. Now, most research in America is
already regulated in many of its stages.
Are you working with an animal? You're subjected to the Animal
Welfare Act. Are you working with a human
being in a clinical trial?
A plethora of regulations that will apply before you can actually enroll that person.
Are you doing genetic engineering in a way that creates a recombinant entity? That will also have to go to a
special review board. Are you working on tissues that will ultimately be transplanted into a human being in some
clinical capacity?
regulated. Now the Food and Drug Administration gets involved. So science is already heavily
But there are nonetheless gaps of regulation where it refers solely to laboratory work, on
cell lines, that don't involve
humans, and don't involve animals. And there were calls for
regulation to fill this gap,
simply because this field is so controversial. The absence of funding, and the
move toward a blunt instrument
of criminalization meant that Wisconsin lost its opportunity to take a more nuanced approach,
which is to ask what would be the right kinds of regulations
needed to foster the research, while allaying public concerns
and protecting any entities that
actually are at risk. Against this backdrop, the one affirmative action that has
occurred in Wisconsin has been
at the executive level, through the governor's office. Because, of course, the
governor, like the president of the United States, has
discretionary power over a certain amount of funding.
And Governor Doyle has directed that certain funds be aimed toward the promotion of stem
For example, he directed the cell research.
Department of Commerce to allocate approximately $5 million toward stem cell
research in general, in the form
of business grants and general science development grants. And we have actually here in the
audience Gabriela Cezar, who's
the Chief Scientific Officer for one of our local companies, Stemina, which got one of the
very first grants, just three or
four weeks ago, that it was announced. A couple of months ago, sorry.
I'm slow on getting my news.
And so we now have examples of the governor using the limited
of a legislative partnership, to power available in the absence
try and promote this field. In addition, many of you are familiar with the announcement
about the Wisconsin Institutes
Research, which will go beyond for Discovery and the companion private sector institute, the Morgridge Institute for
taken a far more aggressive approach in funding, in legislation, in regulation, in Now by contrast, California has
social justice in the use of, or anticipating debates around
access to the benefits of this technology. All of which have made
California the official leader
in the United States in the world of embryonic stem cell research, not Wisconsin.
That said, it is not a
completely unmixed blessing to have all that money.
what's going on, as you put it, on the other frontier. Let me tell you now about
You know, before it burns to the ground, California represents
the epicenter for both the
computer and the biotechnology sectors.
kind of corridor running from San Diego to Los Angeles, and in From southern California in a
northern California from San Jose, through San Francisco and
north up to Berkeley, you have
two huge concentrations of both computer companies and biotechnology companies.
And this kind of concentration
has all sorts of ancillary effects.
highly educated and ready to You draw in a workforce that is
serve, whether it's people who do informatics, or it's people
is people who are specialists in who are bench scientists, or it
management or in intellectual property issues from the law firms, or in drug regulation
issues as you move forward. So what you get is essentially a
companies. professional infrastructure for your biotechnology science
It's exactly why the Masters in Biotechnology Program was
to develop exactly developed here in Wisconsin,
that kind of professional infrastructure for our own biotechnology sector.
California, though, did it
simply through gravity. The sheer concentration of companies simply sucked talent
from all over the country.
Although it doesn't help It didn't hurt that the weather is the best in the world. ( laughter )
that to afford a place to live, you've got to usually move-- I'm not kidding, an hour to an
hour and a half away from where you're working. And that's not that it's an hour
that you're on the side of the and a half worth of miles, it's
Bay Bridge. So California, despite some of the lifestyle challenges, has
become this kind of force to
although driven like all draw talent in. California also has a legislature and a governor that,
more progressive when it comes legislatures, by the debate surrounding abortion, nonetheless tend to be a little
to aggressive economic development.
Biotechnology Center has been extraordinary. And the support for the
In the area of stem cell research, California was the
first one out of the box with a state law that specifically said
believed it. what was already true, but said it so that everybody knew it and
And that was that embryonic stem cell research is legal. Cloning research is legal.
It's going to stay legal until
the day that the federal government actually criminalizes
You don't need to actually say it.
this in law, because in law in the United States, everything is
right? legal until it's made illegal,
I'm serious. That is the presumption here, as
There's an old joke about how in opposed to--
They also said that in Russia, East Germany everything was illegal until you said it was legal, right?
This is my favorite. everything was illegal, especially if it was legal. ( laughter )
In Italy, everything is legal, especially if it's illegal. ( laughter )
And I always thought those
courses. four categories did capture political philosophy better than any number of college
a chance to also get out in Bufront of some issues thatin some concerned the public.dant. So for example, they wrote intoe
that law that all research
subjects of research. thaNow again, in many ways,to have to comply with certain protections for the human
Because the federal rules, and somewhat redundant of federal rules, but not completely.
this is more detail than you need, actually had some interesting little gaps having
to due with the people who
donate tissue. And this clarified that those people, even though not typical
research subjects, would
nonetheless be guaranteed the opportunity to be fully informed before they voluntary gave up
material, like excess embryos or
eggs for research. And California, beyond
yet another and really dramatic initiative. This was 2003 and into 2004, legislation, moved forward with
Proposition 71. And one of the things that when California debated
people, I think, kind of know, because they read about it, is
that California's politics is really unusual. I mean, for all sorts of
unusual in the way that they reasons, but particularly
enact law. They are the kings and queens of
They love referenda. referenda.
They even-- You can't walk down the street in any one of these cities
without somebody thrusting a
petition in your hand because they want to get a referendum on the ballot.
And this time, it was a referendum to provide state funding for embryonic stem cell research.
Actually, all stem cell research, but with a preference to the kind of research the federal government was not
funding.
Now, Prop 71 was being sold as a path to cures for patients. And it was also being sold as
sound economic investment.
And the bonds, essentially, are Becalong-term loans to the it would authorize the state government to sell bonds.
And eventually, it has to be government, to support this research.
paid back, with interest. The idea was that the research was going to pay off in so many
inventions that could be
the cost of paying off the patented, and then licensed for high royalty fees, that the royalty fees were going to cover
interest on the bonds. This was, by the way, no pun
But this was one of the ways it was being sold. And the proposition was heatedly intended, patently insane.
elections. debated before the 2004
The opponents actually cut across a political spectrum that
Most of us are used to thinking about politics in terms of is not intuitive.
traditional left-right, you know pro-abortion rights,
anti-abortion rights; pro-states
are. rights, pro-federal intervention; whatever the kind of typical left-right divisions
who opposed Prop 71 because they That's not how it played out in California. Surely, there were many people
came out of the activist organizations who opposed abortion rights, and saw embryo
research as an extension of the arguments around the moral
But there were also kind of left-of-center, what we used to scall in New York, "Goo-Goo's"f good government people, who saw
Prop 71 as a give-away. State bonds, essentially the
state now borrowing money to give it to biotechnology
companies and wealthy universities like Stanford, who could do just fine on their own,
technology that had no thank you very much for a
guaranteed pay-off, either in cures or in royalties. So they saw this as self-dealing
of the highest sort.
So those people who criticize self-dealing in the military sector were also the same people
who would criticize self-dealing
call fringe women's health in the scientific sector. There were also coming from the left-of-center, people I will
But nonetheless, a very vocal and well publicized minority I say fringe because they represented a distinct minority.
The mainstream women's groups, within the women's health community.
Planned Parenthood, Federation of America, NARAL, National Organization of Women, the ACLU
Women's Projects, they all
stayed studiously silent throughout the years of debate
research for reasons that we can on the human embryonic stem cell
talk about in the Q&A if you'd like. But some women's groups actually
actively opposed Prop 71 because
they saw this as potentially leading toward the purchase of
human eggs, which would require stimulation of women's bodies with infertility drugs that they human tissues, and particularly
1980s, when they were first introduced for use by infertile couples. had been criticizing since the
to the 1980s, about women who were infertile and exactly how So an old argument, dating back
many medical risks and inconveniences they should
undergo to have children, obviously linked to lots of concerns about the ideology around women and childbearing,
was now coming to bear on an
argument 20 years later concerning embryonic stem cell research.
So we had this interesting array
Supporters, on the other hand, in California of right and left wing alliances to oppose Prop 71.
And the universities did in fact also ranged across many different political groups. First you had universities.
see this as a potential way of getting substantial money, not
also for the building of new only for research grants, but
research facilities. Not only is that just kind of generally a nice thing to do,
but because the federal rules,
you need to have studious physical separation of your you'reprivately funded, ormoney for the limited area they fund,
You often needed to have non-federally funded research.
really did want to have additional grants specifically material. And therefore, universities
to build separate facilities that would guarantee their
ability to work on those cell lines that needed to be kept
separate from the federal lines. So the federal policy not only
was starving the field, but it
And this is why the universities was actively draining money out of it, because of the need to create redundant facilities.
were so supportive of Prop 71. The biotech companies, which
of center, also saw this as an don't necessarily all vote left
avenue to significant funding. Remember, biotech companies,
to worry about the time to because they're companies have
predict the time to return on investment, except to the extent And much of this research is so preliminary that you cannot
to say it won't be soon. And therefore, grants become a
very important way of keeping the technology moving forward until the day when you actually can get a full array of private
investors to come on board, because they see a timeline to a
Patient advocacy groups. point at which their money is actually making money itself.
Patients were being sold on the prospect of cures. And this was parallel to what
was going on in the federal government in 2000, 2001 and
2002, when the federal government was busily debating
whether or not to criminalize whole sectors of research.
And at the same time, debating That was one part of what was going on.
whether or not to increase funding for it. Kind of a schizophrenic
congressional moment. And in California, the same debate going on.
mobilized at the federal level So patient groups had been
in the future affirmatively for yfunding this field.o try aThey were brought in again int from crimiCalifornia.d hopefully
Now, the patient groups were
told that cures are not necessarily around the corner. Reputable scientists said over
and over and over that there are
all of these intermediate steps, and science is very serendipitous.
And we don't know when you'll get a cure. But in the public campaigns that
question, the advertisements you saw in California, without
were generally misleading. The advertisements would show a little boy in a wheelchair, and
talk about how much he wanted to
because he's currently using a walk, as if passing Prop 71 guaranteed that this boy, whose muscles were wasting away
then magically he was going to wheelchair, would some day be able to have tissue replacement to repair his spinal cord, and
walk, despite all of the other kinds of accumulating problems
injury like that. We had children-- We had parents talking about the that come with a long-term
Type 1 Diabetes, and the need to agonies of having a child with
to long-term, devastating coproblems like blindness.e medical care and the fear every day that this was going to lead
research came to it out of And indeed some of the most important supporters of this
juvenile diabetes. The charismatic real estate developer, Bob Klein, who led
the Prop 71 effort, had a child with diabetes.
connections, also because of Jerry Zucker, producer in Hollywood, also with Wisconsin
diabetes. Sherry Lansing, former head of Paramount Pictures.
These advertisements about sick children and the prospect for cures, coupled with the promise that this research was going to
payback in spades in the form of
royalties allowed this Proposition to pass.
However, in the process of Not by much, but it passed.
anticipate some of the political writing the proposition, in order to fend off some of the critics, and in order to
backlash, some interesting provisions were written in which
not this money is really going have had an effect on whether or
California Institute for to be as usable as people would like. It created something called the
Regenerative Medicine. C-I-R-M, which I'm going to now refer to as CIRM.
And CIRM's first challenge was
to create a governing board. Prop 71 set up a governing board
the heads of major universities around California. that was largely populated by
So all the people who complained about self-dealing in the
original debate around Prop 71
pointed to this and said, "Ah-ha!" How can this governing council
possibly make unbiased, disinterested decisions when in fact they're talking about
effect on whether or not their policies that will have a direct
own universities are eligible to apply for grants. This meant that the good
government groups were never
Every meeting. quieted after Prop 71 passed. And they became the Gadfly of CIRM.
All of them open, because like us, they've got open meeting
You can actually read the transcripts of every meeting if you really want to be in deep pain.
You can read it on their Web
site, which is cirm.ca.gov Every meeting, the good government groups were there,
challenging who was at the
table, challenging which pieces of paper had been distributed, or not, challenging whether or
not certain people should be
recused because they have a conflict of interest that should not or cannot be waived.
It actually slowed meetings to a
the referendum, which is the halt regularly during the first year of CIRM's existence. Second, because they had lost on
voting mechanism, the next tactic used by those who opposed
an extension of their campaign abortion rights and saw this as
over a provision that was written into Prop 71 to protect the CIRM from legislativeion. And they interference.ecifically
See the Californians looked around the country and saw how
cloning, or criminalizing embryonic stem cell research, and said we can't afford to set up this entire structure, this
governing body, issue these bonds and then six months from
it all. So to protect themselves, they now have the legislature pass a new law that's going to restrict
wrote into the proposition a provision that said the
legislature can't make any
changes, in any aspect of this, for at least three years, to give themselves some breathing
room. Now, in theory that was an
a very dumb thing to do. incredibly smart thing to do. In practice, it turned out to be
Because the legislator who had originally passed state law to
part of the Prop 71 effort. And now as a member of the protect this research was not
CIRM and how it developed. legislature, she was formally cut out of any influence over
And she got really T'-off at Bob Klein.
particular supportive legislator And this conflict between one
that Prop 71 had disempowered and Bob Kleinthem. morphed into a And although legislators mayf many legislators at the idea
and they may disagree about the state budget and they may disagree about whether or not disyou can have a creche aticy
Christmas on state grounds, the one thing they absolutely all agree with is that they should
Right? not be disempowered.
This is the one issue that draws them all together.
look for ways to undermine Prop 71's independence from the So they themselves now began to
they had the opportunity to do legislature, regardless of what they might like to do to it if
its removal of CIRM from a whole so. The litigation over the constitutionality of Prop 71 and
variety of government oversight mechanisms and legislative oversight, that litigation
dragged on for two and a half years, during which time no bonds could be issued.
from the Prop 71 campaign, then on individual donations from CIRM ran first on leftover money
biotechnology companies and private donors. BDolby, for those of you that donations from local
you're in favor of embryonic have Dolby sound systems, if
away. Because Dolby single handedly kept CIRM alive during a crucial If you're opposed, throw them
vanished, until they were able period when funding had really
to actually win in the litigation, all on very technical grounds, having to do
with the way the proposition was
legislature had another wrinteresting side effect.e forward toward funding. But this irritation with the
And that was to empower what otherwise would be a really
teeny weeny little group of people in Oakland, California,
called the Center for Genetics in Society.
CGS, which has a Web site you can find, is a very small operation with very tiny
It is a group that is, I don't funding.
know how to put it, I'd say it's highly skeptical of virtually every development in the world
of biotechnology, whether it's
medical or agricultural. And therefore, they are as
modified foods and with biotechnology to create pest-resistant crops as they are concerned with genetically
screening for expecting couples, with the use of genetic
which they associate with a slippery slope into eugenics and the loss of rights for those of
us who are disabled.
Basically, CGS is left-of-center in its politics, in favor of
of business interests that they believe influence sound judgment abortion rights, but suspicious
In Prop 71, CGS saw several themes intertwined. whThe first is the unintendedhe effect of a 1980s law that has
been at the core of Wisconsin's immense power in the world of science.
And for those of you that are not lawyers and haven't memorized the names of every And that is the BiDole Act.
BiDole, named after Senator Bi piece of law that's been passed,
and Senator Dole, was a law that changed the rules about patenting.
It used to be that if you got a federal grant that you didn't get a patent on this and the
went unexploited by the commercial sector, because inventions that you made often
monopoly, essentially, on the invention, which would then give commercial sector did not see the opportunity to get a
investment they'd have to make. So what BiDole said is if one of them some hope of a return on the research and development
money that he got from NIH, that our researchers here at Wisconsin invents something with
the patent can belong to the researcher. Then we have WARF, and WARF
existed long before BiDole, but this really increased the level of activity.
inventor to patent this and WARF WARF can then help the academic
can do the work of trying to flog this to the commercial sector, which they do extremely
well. That's what they mean when they talk about technology transfer
And at that point, the in the newspapers.
invention, which was in its most rudimentary form in the academic
where the intermediate steps laboratory, now goes to a place
that move it from a really cool idea to something that's actually commercially viable,
something that can be produced
in quantities and with reliability, something that can be packaged and priced in ways
that make it a viable consumer
increase the rate at which product, all that goes on off-campus. So BiDole was a great way to
technology moved from campus to commercial sector. And people who've studied this
do agree that the rate of commercial use of academic
One of the unintended effects, inventions has absolutely increased with the BiDole Act.
however, has been to turn academic researchers into people who then are often going to be
connected with the companies
particularly in the biotech tsector itself, we saw more and their inventions. Starting in the 1980s,
more academic scientists becoming entrepreneurs.
And having a portion of their time spent off-campus at a
laboratory that was a commercial lab, trying to figure out how to
move their invention another few
steps down the road. And as a result, scientists who had this kind of Sinclair Lewis
Aerosmith image of, you know, pure impoverished integrity,
right? Suddenly were viewed with some
degree of skepticism. Because now they had a
combination interests in the good science, but also in making
money, in producing something that could be moved off-campus. And whereas before they were
criticism, at least with regard to conflict of interest. somewhat immunized against
And were at risk only of the kind of mad scientist image that
would periodically hit the
lot of suspicion about their American newspapers and television shows. Now they were also subject to a
true motives when they said this is safe technology, or this is a
And the Center for Genetics in valuable technology.
Society absolutely exploited that transformation in the image
The second, as I alluded to earlier is that the CGS had people who were still fighting of the scientist.
of In Vitro fertilization. over the 1980s development
This was something that was in fact developed very rapidly.
of large-scale, federally funded It was developed in the absence
basic research, both on how to fertilize eggs efficiently and
that to achieve successful safely, and also how to manage
pregnancy rates. Why?
1980, has not been funding Because the government, since
embryo research. So the field developed without
It instead developed with research that was financed by private patient fees. thIt is a field that expandedg.
beyond its initial indications
for women with scarred fallopian tubes, and rapidly began to be
women whose infertility was from promoted, actively promoted, to
unknown causes, or for women who were perfectly fertile, but whose husbands had fertility
problems. And because it is an expensive, inefficient, uncomfortable and
women in the 1980s in the health not riskless procedure, many
movement were very, very suspicious about the way the
It also connected to something technology was being promoted.
that maybe we can talk about during the Q&A, which is a long,
women's health movement and the physicians who work in complicated history between the
reproductive medicine. And a great deal of suspicion
between the two communities about their reliability.
of America. IVF is immune to political IVF, despite that, however, became a part of the social norm
no matter how conservative, no backlash at this point. No state in the United States,
matter how opposed to abortion rights, will ever pass a law
in hundreds of thousands that makes IVF, which results
of embryos that get destroyed, no state will pass a
The reason is that just far too many people have a daughter, or a niece, or a sister, or a law that criminalizes it.
pregnant. It has simply become too mother, who used IVF to get
engrained in the fabric of our lives for it to be vulnerable to
politics. But it is still a flash point for certain people in terms of their suspicion of doctors.
And for CGS, the Center for Genetics in Society, that was certainly true. So the Center for Genetics in
Society, as I said, being a tiny
the legislators who were little group, nonetheless got enormous influence. They formed an alliance with
looking at ways that they could preign in CIRM despite theh having belimitations.red, and managed to get the legislature
that would absolutely ban payment in certain areas of this For example, to pass new laws
payment, even the replacement of research. For example, a total ban on any
proposed ban on giving your eggs, even for free, because volunteer to give their eggs. Indeed at one point, there was a
about taking on the medical risks and inconveniences of women are simthis.ot capable of maIn addition, there wereon
proposals to change the rules about the sharing of the
eliminated the financial benefits of the research in a way that would've essentially
potential of patented inventions, at least for commercial companies in
California, which was going to
probably strip away any incentive for private-public partnerships between private
companies and CIRM. Now, CIRM's reaction to this was
to take advantage of its funding status to create what is by far
the most comprehensive, and in
some ways, the most onerous set of regulations in embryonic stem cell research imaginable.
And I have to take some degree
of credit and blame for this, since I sat on that very group that wrote those rules.
And I can only tell you that to the extent the rules are overly detailed, they are there as a reaction to the critics.
Because each rule was adopted in
these people who otherwise would order to allay the fears or quell the criticisms of these otherwise supportive groups,
be supportive of the research, but who came with either good government, or suspicion of
scientists, or suspicion of reproductive medicine concerns. So California's regulations begin with the template of our
National Academy guidelines that
And they basically called for some very simple things. Those guidelines were deliberately kept fairly broad.
First, some additional institutional oversight of the
research, so that every university, every company had a body that actually kept track of
doing it, to make sure they were what was being done and who was
complying with the guidelines that they're now adopting. Second, that there be special
care taken in obtaining human materials, whether it's eggs, or
that none of these things are ever given without people fully it'understanding what they'reek or it's embryos, to make sure
might be done in the future, and doing, what kind of research
that they have no obligation to do this. In addition, to regulate the
guidelines suggesting people
shouldn't make such a decision with regard to embryos until
they were going to discard the after they had already decided
embryos. In other words, they never get
to discarding embryos. to see research as an incentive
Simply, once having decided to discard, you can discard either by simply tossing them away or
you can discard by giving them
of doing it. to research, which will destroy them in the end, as well, but maybe you find that a better way
totally non-problematic, having Thto do with purely, you know,s said that there were categories of research that ranged from
that just required more conversation, anything that involved a combination of human lineand non-human materials,ic,
something that we need to do at certain stages of research in order to test whether or not
things that we derive from them can function properly in the these cell lines and those
done now at all, a kind of body of an animal; and some things that really shouldn't be
self-censorship of science because of the uncertainties. An example was don't do an
experiment that would use human embryonic stem cells in conjunction with a non-human
chimp or a baboon, in a way that primate, like a monkey or a
would result in a brain that was a complete mixture of human and non-human primate cells.
Why?
Because at a biological level, at a psychological level, and a philosophical level, we don't
actually know what we've
created. And we don't know how to
the entity, bad for society, evaluate whether it's bad for
dangerous, whatever. So let's just not do it yet.
moment, akin to what was done in A kind of self-censorship
the 1970s when we slowed down in the area of recombinant DNA research in order to move that
forward more methodically, and
guard against ecological risk. That was pretty much the
What California did was to take those and embroider upon them in guidelines.
conflict of interest rules above extraordinary detail. For example, very elaborate
and beyond the notion that you should only give up your embryos
decided to destroy them. for research after you've
So now very difficult conflict of interest rules that might
IVF doctor to participate in make it almost impossible for an
this research. And yet, IVF doctors are crucial
because they are the people who are the bridge between the partners in this research,
new lines. embryo donors and the investigators who need to derive
tell people about all the different kinds of research that embryos or your eggs. Long lists of things you have to
might be done off into the future.
Long debates about whether or not anybody can donate ever because how can you be informed since we don't know all the
kinds of research that might be done in the future. With regard to egg donation,
the way, which have not been long lists of medical risks, by
proven, that you need to acknowledge as real before you
And all of these embodied in can donate your eggs.
regulations which can't be changed without an elaborate
administrative law. So for example if it says that procedure under California
associated with the hyper-stimulation for egg donation, something that has not is a risk of ovarian cancer
year we actually get definitive information to disprove it. It can take two years to change yet beethe regulation.if next
And meanwhile, you're obligated by law to give medially inaccurate information. It's one of the challenges of
using regulations, is that they can't be changed as fast as science and medicine. And it's one of the reasons why
other states are looking for
ways to use best practices and guidelines and explanatory
general rules. documents to elaborate on more
But in California, this couldn't be done, because you could not
things into stone when it came allay fears without burning
California is not the only place to things like informed consent and conflict of interest. I should also tell you that
that's doing this. We have a whole lot of states that are now going to be funding
in this area. Following in California's footsteps with various kinds of funding mechanisms we have:
New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland,
Illinois, Rhode Island shortly to join that pack.
Every time a state enters the field of funding, they have to
write a set of rules for their grantees.
And every set of rules will differ somewhat.
Every set of rules will have a different oversight body made up
of different kinds of people. Every one will have slightly
different rules about what you can do and what you can't do
with your cell lines, how you have to get consent, how you
something really quite unusual have to manage the materials. And then we are set up for
in the world of science. Because we're used to science operating on a national level in
the United States.
We're used to science being funded by the federal government with a single set of rules and
with standardized oversight committees and standardized ways
of evaluating what you can and cannot do.
Sure, there are individual
under the same set of rules. variations in the interpretations of those rules, but by and large, we all operate
So we can collaborate with one another.
I can send you a cell line. You can come to my lab. Now, however, what we have are We can exchange materials.
their own sets of rules. 50 individual states writing
What happens if I, in Wisconsin, want to send my line to my
But my line came from an embryo that was donated four years ago in Missouri. collaborator in California?
got consent did not actually And in Missouri, the way they
require reciting all the 26 elements that were listed in the California regulations.
Can the California researcher use that line, or is that line
Embryonic stem cell customs control at the California border, just like the medfly, they're going to shake your
truck.
( laughter ) You laugh, but this is
because this means that we have to now make a second order set actually quite serious,
of regulations, not about how we want to do things when you're
using our money, but also which states and which rules are so basic that if somebody else hasn't followed them, we won't
let you use their stuff.
among the states. AndOther people call it moralh, mutual recognition and respect. Some people call this comity
And every time you say that only relativism, which they use like a dirty word.
these rules are at the core, and everything else is kind of, you know, icing on the cake, you
re-open the debate around why you have those icing rules to begin with. Why not just the core rules of
what makes something acceptably derived.
So in fact what we now have is a really unusual situation in
science of tremendous conflict. And California, by adopting such
a strict and complicated and comprehensive set of rules, and
yet also being the 800-pound
gorilla in the country, with more research universities, more
means everybody else in America has to pay attention to the California rules. Because if you can't play with
the Californians, you can't play
with about half the people in the country doing this research. In that sense, California has
engaged in the exportation, not only of its regulations, but of its particular California political problems.
And we are all going to have to live with it. Now, I want to conclude by
problem is-- simply mentioning that this
Conclude this section. I'm going to conclude everything
By simply mentioning that there is some little hope on the pretty soon, I promise.
horizon. Because under the auspices of
the National Academy of Sciences
committee, the Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research Advisory Committee, we have now worked to
create something called the Interstate Alliance for Stem
Cell Research. And Connecticut, which fancies
itself a major leader in this field, has taken the lead for the Interstate Alliance.
And that is for every new state getting into this field, to try and encourage the states to adopt uniform statutes, uniform
regulations.
And where they can't make them uniform, to limit the variations
So that we can begin to at to one of two or three options.
least reign in what otherwise might be an ever-expanding plethora of minor differences
that could drive our research community crazy for years to
what in Wisconsin? come. Now, what for the future, and
For sure, Wisconsin continues to work outside the hothouse of
regulation, political debates around funding, and political and litigation challenges. political debates around
I mean, in a kind of be careful what you wish for moment, once And that's no small thing.
it became clear California really was going to be able to
have the money, people began to fight so bitterly it actually drove the head of CIRM out of the organization.
Patient groups fought over which
disease group was going to get the first funds.
who was going to get the biggest Universities began battling over
mega-grants. Disagreement about the theory of
Should you give everybody a little bit, because that's how funding.
you achieve political peace? That's why, by the way, we've
got military installations in almost every congressional
district, right? Or should you try to figure out
what's going to be the area of
research that's going to give you the cures the fastest? Or maybe you should give your
money to basic research, which
won't give you any progress, any visible progress soon, but will pay off in spades in ten years
because it's at the base of 12
diseases and 13 techniques. This debate, vicious, vociferous and never ending once the money
was real. And litigation. I mean, once the money was
The most recent one being filed by somebody who is representing an organization called the really there, more law suits.
for the Advancement of Pre-born Children. And they are suing California Nfor having passed Propositionn
71, which they say is banned
by the U.S. Constitution because of the 13th Amendment,
on the theory that it is which bans slavery,
enslaving embryos that will be used for research.
said, yes, they're suing us, but And the new head of CIRM simply
Again, not something that whappens here in Wisconsin. defending law suits as simply a cost of doing business.
there were a change in position with the next administration, whether republican or democrat funding, which might happen if
lessening of the relative advantages of California over Wisconsin. in Washington, will come a
advantages of legislative funding programs can be frustrating, we also have the opportunity to work somewhat
outside the spotlight, under the
radar. In other words, small can be
nurtured. If it means freedom from beautiful if it is properly
onerous, complicated regulations adopted, not so much for their
substance but because it is political defense.
If it means that you are free to work without the constant threat
of legislative backlash.
And if it means that you're working in a town that is both talented enough to have depth of
expertise and small enough to facilitate real collaboration,
then actually small can be beautiful.
And it might be that it makes Wisconsin in fact a place that
has advantages in some ways over California.
I think basically, that great research comes from happy scientists. ( laughter )
And I think properly nurtured,
that happy scientists can come from Wisconsin. Or as Marie Antoinette might say
to the Californians, "Let them
eat cheese." Thank you.
We will let Alta rest while you all think of your questions. ( applause )
hand, she'll call on you. And we'll get to as many as we If you want to just raise your
possibly can this evening. Thank you.
Here you go.
>> Yes, sir. ( inaudible ) Okay, I'm going to do my best
to answer briefly.
It'll be brief, not only for the sake of the audience, but because I'm not a patent lawyer,
so I'm going to exhaust all my
knowledge of patent law very fast. And for further information,
I'm going to refer you--
I told you I was going to do this. Where is he?
He's in the audience somewhere. Grady Frenchick, from Whyte,
There you are. Hirschbeck, Dudek, who is a patent attorney.
And I told him I was going to refer people to him. So yes, WARF irritated a lot of
people around the United States over Jamie Thomson's patents. Some of that irritation is due
misunderstanding on the part of people. Because indeed the lines that were made here by Jamie came
from embryos that were donated
in Madison and Israel. Those lines were donated by couples who had been told
certain things about would and
would not be done with those lines in research.
other universities to use those lines, and then transfer those So, when WARF would license
the lines in their research, and lines, WARF would insist that certain things not be done with
would also insist that the people getting these materials
party without notifying WARF. WARF wanted to be able to track who had them and make sure not transfer them to a third
limitations. everybody knew about the
fees being charged in California This was not commonplace in the world of academic research. Second, there were licensing
to CIRM. And this outraged people. How can you charge a government
agency? But remember, CIRM had sold Prop 71 on the notion that they were going to make a fortune
off of all their inventions.
So from WARF's point of view, they were a commercial entity, not an academic, non-profit
entity that deserved to have the
free or cheap licenses that they were offering to other academic researchers.
So there was a lot of fussing around the WARF patents.
the particular negotiations. Then there are other things I don't know about the details of
One of the results has been that there are some people in the
very badly to the whole notion scientific community reacted
of a patent in this area at all. They've claimed that Jamie
development from the previous work on the mouse. Thomson's work is an obvious
And they sued, saying that the patents should not have been
granted, because it was not a true invention, it was simply an
obvious development. The patent office has an appeals
process.
In the first two steps, it's very common that they will then kind of back off the patent, and
that in fact has happened.
What will happen at the last stage, we don't know. WARF has already slightly
altered the claims on the patent
to narrow and specify in a way to make them more precise.
further, I don't know. Whether they get narrowed
Your second question had to do with the business of first to file.
And this may be a little too
between U.S. and technical, because it's not about stem cells. It's about the basic difference
European patent law. You can have a patent law that
gets the patent. says the first person to invent
And you can have a patent law that says the first person who rushes in with a piece of paper
describing the invention gets the patent. The advantages of the latter
who filed the first paper than system is it's easier to know
it is to know who first invented it. Who first invented takes
investigation and a lot of
fussing around with lawyers, and investigators, and discovery, and interrogatories, and it's
messy.
On the other hand, if you have first to file, it means that
something may not want to talk people who have invented
That may slow down public abodiscussion and academic've discussion of these inventions. And as I understand it, WARF and
UW, and major research
universities around the United States have taken the position
first to invent position that we they want to continue with the
currently have in the United States, rather than moving to a first to file.
Grady, did I get it?
( laughs ) ( inaudible ) That's, yeah--
Yes, in the back in the red.
( inaudible ) Globally, there's tremendous variation around the world.
So there are some countries that
have made themselves extremely attractive for stem cell
And that would be the United research because they fund it.
Kingdom, first and foremost. The United Kingdom also has a long history of funding embryo
research and reproductive technologies. They have a robust regulatory system.
Many people complain that it is cumbersome. It requires licensing of every
is going on. facility where some of this work
the applications than you might get under U.S. Constitutional ovlaw, depending on who'sty baseon the Supreme Court.e of
But nonetheless, it's probably
pointed to as the best example of regulation and funding.
backdrop of a polity that is But remember, it's against a
And the country certainly isn't basicapolarized.tive. There are critics, but they are not sizable.
Also very supportive, you've identified Singapore.
China, India, those are places
Israel, also supportive, with more rudimentary regulation, and not regulating at all, pretty much.
a smaller player, but a very active one in their own
community.
Australia, like the United States, is a federal country. And therefore, each state has
different policies. They've been going through
agonies in Queensland, Victoria, and New South Wales as they
debate embryonic stem cell
research and then they debate cloning. And they continually keep trying
to maneuver between wanting to
be a leader, because they were very much a leader in the early development of IVF, and wanting
to be attentive to the concerns of the conservatives in their constituencies. Although Queensland, one of the
most conservative states in Australia, just recently now has
cloning research. In Europe, we have again a moved toward liberalizing its attitude on things like
patchwork. Germany, out of its, you know,
unique history from World War II, has for decades been very skittish about anything having
means biotechnology. to do with genetics, and that
DNA, anything to do with genetic So they tend to have the most conservative attitude about anything to do with recombinant
restrictive, not only in terms screening, and anything to do with embryos. So Germany has been the most
of what you can do in Germany, but even exporting the criminal law, by saying that a German
scientist working in England, where it's perfectly legal, would be violating German criminal law if she went there
to do her work. That's very unusual in the world
of criminal law. Usually, criminal law only
applies to what you do within your jurisdiction.
France is very strange. And I say this with love, because I did my Fulbright there the people who are citizens.
But I cannot figure out what and I really do love France.
they mean when they endlessly repeat the phrase, "la dignite du la humanite."
Because the dignity of the
human is something that can mean anything to anybody, depending
For the moment, it seems to mean upon what you want it to mean.
a generally nervous attitude about anything involving the
But they're not willing to go and actually criminalize it all. destruction of an embryo.
Interestingly, places like Spain are remarkably open. SYou might think Spain would be being more open about it.
But in fact, in the post-Franco era, the backlash was such that they actually opened up more very conservative.
Europe. So lots and lots of variation. than many other countries in
Congress has now twice voted Yeah? ( inaudible )
to increase funding for embryonic stem cell research beyond the current
administration policy.
federal money to work on the For those that are a little bit fuzzy on it, the current policy is to allow researchers to use
lines that existed before the policy was declared. The theory being in no way is
the federal government somehow
went on long ago, before they coannounced their policy.or giThat means lines that wereo the destruction of embryos that
But you cannot use federal money created between 1998 and 2001.
for any lines that were derived from embryos destroyed after August, 2001, which of course,
every day that goes by, it's an increasing number of lines, many
of whom have characteristics that researchers would like to
study.
So Congress has now repeatedly voted to expand the funding and get rid of that limitation.
And President Bush has vetoed those bills twice.
The latest suggestion has been to put a rider on the
authorization or the
appropriations bill for Labor HHS, and to put in a rule that would say we would expand
federal funding again to allow
funding for work on lines up to the date at which the bill passes.
In other words, they would use
the same trick that the Bush administration did, right?
to destroy these. They did it on their own. They never had a promise of Hey, we didn'money.urage anybody
But now, retroactively, we're going to let them use our money on those lines. And the bills that are going to
be held hostage are bills that
have more general application in the areas of Labor, Health and
I don't think anybody seriously thinks this is going to happen. It's more now a political tool, to try and force members of
Congress who are up for re-election to take positions and make it obvious to their
So I think now it's just constituencies.
political football, and that's all that we can really expect.
change in federal policy with a new administration, you might get funding to work on lines, Keebut you will still not gets a
federal funding to derive new lines, because that involves
your dish. manipulating the embryo itself, not just the stem cell lines in
And manipulating the embryo itself is a whole separate thing.
It's limited by Congressional action years ago. And unless Congress wants to
still need private money or state money to derive new lines, overturn that limitation, we'll
or make lines through cloning. And only then could you use your
federal money to work on the
resulting laboratory supplies of stem cell lines.
( inaudible ) $3 billion. So it's $300 million a year You for ten years.up?
( inaudible ) Well the only absolute
And that's the Department of kind of targeted allocation is $5 million.
Commerce allocation. The Wisconsin Institutes for
commitment, but that covers a lot of things above and beyond Discovery is a $750 million
proportion of that money will ultimately go to embryonic stem stecell research.h. And we don't know what
better than anybody else what kind of money we've got coming And Clive and Tim probably know
I don't know if you've got any in from private donations through the Foundation.
estimates. ( inaudible ) Please give generously!
( laughs )
( inaudible ) All right. Until now.
And meet Clive and Tim, who are the heads of that stem cell center. ( inaudible )
Other questions?
Or have we worn you out? Yeah? ( inaudible )
They are, actually. CIRM first distributed training grants. Before they even had the bonds
issued, they used money from
graduate students in laboratory their pritechniques.ons to do And some of that money went for the Stem Cell Fellows Program
that Laura had mentioned in the introduction, which was a program to bring people into
and business students into the graduate school, or law students
world of stem cells. So some of that money was used
the law students at the Berkeley to support, for example, some of
Law School that I was advising. Then after the stem cell training grants, they then had
another round of grant making,
of $46 million, I think, which went for actual substantive research. And that was a total
that they allocated. And it went to researchers up and down the California coast,
researchers all over, from not
like University of California only thSanta Barbara.s like UCLA, and Stanford, and Berkeley, but also at places
there then becomes eligible to And indeed, Jamie Thomson now having a part-time appointment
become a grantee. It certainly enhances UCSB's ability to attract grants.
UC-Irvine, another university trying to become a major player.
And the quality of those grant proposals really varied a lot.
They were put together very quickly.
an incredibly high rate, And something like 70% or 80% were actually approved, which is
compared NIH, which approves maybe 6% to 15%,
Everybody expects that the next round of grants will probably be depending on the cycle.
some money out the door. far more competitive. But they really wanted to push
As one would say, these are facts on the ground. These are dollars on the ground,
and they create a kind of precedent, in terms of funding. The big, big funding is about to
So this governing council, the happen.
ICOC, the Independent Citizens Oversight Committee, is meeting and just had a big fuss about
whether or not it was going to
be open or closed, and whose conflicts were going to be
So those of you that are really interested in getting a somewhat waived.
biased view, but you know, sassy view, should go and Google
California stem cell report.
This is a guy who's obsessed with CIRM, and basically blogs
And they are now about to sit down and begin to make the everything that happens.
I mean, these are the mega-grants. grants for the actual buildings and infrastructure grants.
Rumor has it that Stanford might be a very happy recipient of
substantial funding, which
raises some eyebrows, because of course, Stanford has more money than God.
But they also have a really first class set of researchers. And so along with places like UCSF, make a very credible claim
to being able to use the money
point to any one thing. But there are lots of individual ( inaudible ) I don't think you can
factors that help. For one thing, they already had
a very robust computer sector,
high-technology, high-knowledge windustry based, and catered to atmosphere which was very comforting to people who are
phenomenal doesn't hurt. that sensibility. The fact that their weather is
The computer sector also provided key support in terms of
genome project, which played informatics for parts of the
into this. You've got a concentration of high-quality research
institutions there that you can't have here.
We are one university. University of Wisconsin-Madison stands alone.
We are phenomenal. I mean, we're way better than we
But we're alone. should be.
And there, you've got Berkeley. You've got UCSF. You've got Stanford.
All within an easy car ride,
well, it depends on the time of day. ( laughter )
For parts of the day, an easy car ride from one another.
So there is this kind of overlap And people socialize with one another.
that provide the end point among the institutions. You also have a variety of first class hospitals
And then, because of the for your clinical trials. So, you've got all of those things going for you.
computer sector having attracted a lot of venture capitalists, who then settled there, you also
had access to the money people, right there, right away.
connections that are forged over years worth of wine and And one cannot overestimate the value of these personal
cheese. And Wisconsin cheese, yeah! So there are many things that Mostly wihelp them.le bit of
Many, many things that help them
in terms of having a concentration of talent.
In the back in the pale green shirt. So it's synergy.
I think that's pale green. ( inaudible )
I don't believe they're doing much funding in this area.
I think their focus has really moved to HIV-AIDS and work in
developing countries. I don't recall the Gates
I don't remember anybody talking Foundation doing much in this area at all.
proposal for wide use of about approaching them. Now, if some day it turns out that somebody has a credible
embryonic stem cells might help in, for example the drug discovery process for diseases
they care about, like malaria and HIV, that might attract their attention.
I saw there was one other hand I see her getting up.
middle? up, so I'lYeah?e one last ( inaudible ). TCompensate in what way?e
( inaudible ) I think they already do.
I mean, let's face it. The thing that people know about
the University of Wisconsin,
besides the football team, and besides the Sociology Department, is the Life Sciences
campus. If you ask people around the
University of Wisconsin, they think of Life Sciences. They think of this as a research when they think of the
And that encompasses everything from ecology to genome work to university.
biomechanical engineering to computing.
It's all of a piece.
So for sure, this campus has the capability in terms of talent and interdisciplinarity, and the
lack of bureaucratic obstacles
to collaboration, which by the way, is unusual here, as
Stanford, where walking across compared to places like
can become very active and to another building is like traveling to another country. That means that we absolutely
players in things like synthetic biology, which is coming down the pike as a big thing, or
nanotechnology, which is already
a big thing. Or a small thing! ( laughter )
There's no limit
to what we can do. But we also operate on a smaller scale.
And we have to figure out how to turn that to our advantage,
Thank you very much. ( rather than bemoaning its disadvantages.
applause )