San Francisco has won its bid to become home to the state stem cell institute headquarters - a brand new office space about a 15-minute walk from the growing life sciences campus at UCSF Mission Bay.
The eagerly awaited decision reached on May 6 signals a major turning point in Mission Bay's redevelopment renaissance. This transformation began just five years ago when UCSF broke ground for its first health sciences research and teaching building at its 43-acre Mission Bay campus.
Word of the decision quickly spread throughout UCSF minutes after the decision was made late Friday afternoon.
"The placement of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine next door to the UCSF Mission Bay campus is a wonderful symbolic note, given UCSF's pioneering role in the stem cell field," said Keith Yamamoto, PhD, executive vice dean at the UCSF School of Medicine.
"While the institute headquarters will house an administrative staff, it will also be a gathering point for meetings of stem cell scientists from all over the world. In this way, its placement near UCSF Mission Bay will add to and gain from the energy and momentum already evident at this new biosciences campus," Yamamoto said.
In a highly competitive process, San Francisco beat out rivals San Diego and Sacramento to have space in a mixed-use project at 250 King Street selected as the site of the administrative headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). The CIRM was created last November when voters approved a statewide ballot measure which authorizes $3 billion in bonds to support stem cell research, much of it using human embryonic stem cells, over the next 10 years. The measure was brought to voters in an attempt to get around limits on federally financed embryonic stem cell research set by President George W. Bush.
In an all-day meeting in Fresno, the 27-member stem cell oversight group known as the Independent Citizens Oversight Committee (ICOC) approved by a five-vote margin to locate the headquarters in San Francisco, the front-runner in the competition all along. The ICOC decision was widely expected since it considered recommendations from a site search subcommittee, which announced May 2 that San Francisco's King Street site should be selected. Still, the ICOC heard final pitches from the representatives of San Diego and Sacramento, the second - and third-scoring cities, before making its decision.
The CIRM headquarters proximity to UCSF - the birthplace of biotechnology and a pioneer in stem cell research - was itself a major selling point in Mayor Gavin Newsom's winning proposal.
"One of the key factors in choosing the Mission Bay location was the concept of being close to UCSF's new research campus, while still being at the center of city life," the proposal stated. "The benefits to the CIRM of being so close to UCSF, and established and emerging biotech companies, and other research entities within Mission Bay, such as the Gladstone Institutes are paramount."
The victory adds to the allure of San Francisco as "a city at the center of the most important cluster of life sciences research in the world."
"No single place on earth offers as much access to the people - the scientists, the venture capitalists, the biotech workforce, the scholars and the legal experts - who can successfully chart the future course of stem cell research and product development," the bid noted.
"We're delighted to find out that San Francisco has been selected for the new headquarters," said Bruce Spaulding, vice chancellor of University Advancement and Planning at UCSF. "It was very evident from reviewing the point schedule that the scientific environment of the Bay Area, and particularly UCSF, was one of the major factors in the decision."
Spaulding, who was part of Mayor Newsom's working group to prepare the proposal, credited volunteers who rallied community support for San Francisco, including Gap Inc. Founder Donald Fisher. Fisher was among a large contingent of civic, business and political leaders to write a letter to the ICOC to express his strong support for San Francisco as the headquarters for the CIRM.
Plenty of Perks
As part of a bidding process to determine the location of its permanent headquarters, CIRM asked local governments, working in partnership with building owners, to provide about 17,000 square feet of office space at little or no cost. In the end, the cities and counties which submitted proposals in March offered so much more.
The centerpiece of San Francisco's proposal, reportedly worth about $17 million in perks, includes a ten-year, no-cost lease on the third floor of a building at 250 King Street - brand new office space near UCSF Mission Bay, the center of the Bay Area's burgeoning life sciences community. The office space, directly across from SBC Ballpark and boasting expansive views of the Bay, will be built out to the CIRM's precise specifications. It will be outfitted with the highest quality fixtures and furniture and equipped with the latest in advanced telecommunications systems at absolutely no cost to the CIRM.
San Francisco's winning bid also included:
• more than 46,000 square feet of laboratory, office and facility space at the San Francisco General Hospital Medical Center campus;
• no cost or highly discounted meeting and convention space provided at seven different meeting facilities, including those at the J. David Gladstone Institutes and UCSF Mission Bay, the Moscone Convention Center and Bill Graham Civic Auditorium;
• discounted affiliate-rates for use of UCSF's state-of-the-art Bakar Fitness and Recreation Center in the Mission Bay Community Center;
• an array of transportation services, including access to UCSF's free campus shuttle system.
The bid also submitted an alternative location at 1700 Owens Street should the CIRM have wanted to be closer to UCSF. For the full bid package submitted by Mayor Newsom go
here (PDF).
Right Choice
For many UCSF leaders, faculty and staff, the choice of San Francisco was clearly the right one, given UCSF's leading role in stem cell research. UCSF is where Gail Martin, PhD, professor of anatomy, was one of the first scientists in the world to isolate precursor cells from mouse embryos. In fact, this early work coined the term embryonic stem cells and laid the groundwork for current worldwide research on the use of human embryonic stem cells to treat disease.
Much work remains to be done in this field, Yamamoto said. "Scientists in UCSF's Program in Developmental and Stem Cell Biology, based at the UCSF Parnassus campus, are carrying out a broad range of stem cell studies related to diabetes, Parkinson's disease, heart disease, muscle diseases and craniofacial deformities, with an eye toward clinical therapies. A great deal of basic research needs to be done before the potential of stem cells is realized, and those studies are also strongly represented in our program. This is a transformative period in human developmental biology and a very exciting time in UCSF's history."
UCSF's Developmental and Stem Cell Biology program is led by Arnold Kriegstein, MD, PhD, who was recruited in April 2004. He has an international reputation for his work on neuronal stem cells in the developing brain and is widely regarded as a key leader in this scientific frontier.
For Spaulding, who represented UCSF in successful negotiations with Catellus Development Corp. and former Mayor Willie Brown to get the 43 acres of land donated to the University, Friday's decision was a major sign that Mission Bay is gaining momentum as a life sciences hub.
"I knew that people wouldn't be attracted to a piece of land with a UC flag there," he said. "These firms are coming to build real relationships with scientists. Now we are seeing the fruits of our labor at Mission Bay. This major venture, with three research buildings open and three more buildings on the way, combined with our recruitments and commitment that we've made toward stem cell research, are driving people to this thriving community."
David A. Kessler, dean of the UCSF School of Medicine and vice chancellor for medical affairs, was among those to vote in favor of San Francisco. Kessler, who was appointed to the ICOC in November by UCSF Chancellor Mike Bishop, was joined by two other members with UCSF affiliations, Jeff Sheehy and Phyllis Preciado in Fresno on Friday.
"This is a significant turning point in the development of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine," Kessler said. "Now, the Independent Citizens Oversight Committee can turn its full attention to the important work of appointing leaders to run the Institute and proceed with the important work of establishing ethical and procedural standards and the administration of grants. The Institute's grants are needed to support the training of young scientists, research studies and the construction of laboratories aimed at advancing the stem cell field. There is a lot of work that needs to be done if the promising field of stem cell research is to yield important medical advances."
Photo by Mark Defeo
Source: Lisa Cisneros
Related Links
San Francisco Selected as Site of Stem Cell Institute (SF Chronicle)
