FILE - In this March 16, 2012, file photo, researcher Terry Storm works in a stem cell research lab at the Lorry I. Lokey Stem Cell Research Building on the Stanford University campus in Palo Alto, Calif. The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine has doled out nearly $3 billion for stem-cell research since 2004. Now, with the institute running out of money, its advocates are asking California voters to approve Proposition 14, to give it a $5.5 billion cash infusion.

FILE - In this Feb. 16, 2007 file photo, then-California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, center, is surrounded by supporters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, during a news conference in Burlingame, Calif., to announce the recipients of grants from CIRM. The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine has doled out nearly $3 billion for stem-cell research since 2004. Now, with the institute running out of money, its advocates are asking California voters to approve Proposition 14, to give it a $5.5 billion cash infusion.

By JOHN ROGERS Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) The future of California's first-of-its-kind stem cell research program is in the hands of voters, who will decide whether it deserves a $5.5 billion infusion of borrowed bond money to keep functioning.

A yes vote on Proposition 14 on Tuesday's ballot would approve such a bond sale, bailing out the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which was created by a similar $3 billion bond measure in 2014 but is now nearly broke.

With dozens of clinical trials involving the use of stem cells to treat cancer, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, paralysis, autoimmune diseases and other conditions underway at universities across California, supporters say it is crucial to keep that money flowing.

Trials that use human embryonic derived stem cells to treat diabetes, to treat blindness and to treat spinal cord injury, those trials are early but already showing signs of patient benefit," said professor Larry Goldstein, who directs the stem cell research program at the University of California, San Diego. Losing those trials would be a terrible tragedy for those patients.

Opponents say the state simply can't afford to take on that kind of debt during a pandemic-induced economic crisis. What's more, they say, there isn't as much need for California to bankroll stem cell research now that the federal government and private investors have turned their attention to it.

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Voters asked to approve $5.5 billion for stem cell research - Madison.com