Jessica Lo Surdo, M.S. (foreground), a staff scientist at the Food and Drug Administration, studies chain reactions in stem cells in an FDA laboratory on the National Institutes of Health campus in Bethesda, Md.
Jessica Lo Surdo, M.S. (foreground), a staff scientist at the Food and Drug Administration, studies chain reactions in stem cells in an FDA laboratory on the National Institutes of Health campus in Bethesda, Md. Credit: Michael J. Ermarth / US Food and Drug Administration

In 2004, state voters approved a $3 billion bond to fund stem cell research. A bigger ask, for $5.5 billion, is coming in 2020. “Civic” sat down with Kevin McCormack, senior director for public communications and patient advocate outreach at the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, to talk about the history of stem cell research, what the first bond has actually funded compared with what researchers hoped to achieve, and what’s being promised to voters this time around.

“For us the biggest concern is that if we don’t get funded that many of the most promising research projects may just simply fade away.” — Kevin McCormack
 

Mel Baker is the producer and a contributor to The San Francisco Public Press radio program/podcast Civic. He has worked as a national network and Bay Area broadcaster for many decades. From early training in National Public Radio’s newscast unit, to stints in the newsrooms of KGO radio and KTVU-TV, and as a news anchor and reporter at KALW and other Bay Area stations, he has embraced the responsibility of broadcast media to “enlighten and inform” the community.