By most estimates, it will be years before any cures emerge from the research funded by California's $3-billion stem cell measure approved in 2004. But already, the funding has changed the landscape for stem cell research by drawing top scientists to the Golden State.

Last week, noted stem cell researcher Shinya Yamanaka joined the Gladstone Institute for Cardiovascular Disease in San Francisco as an investigator. There he will continue his work on reprogramming adult cells so they enter a state that has the ability like embryonic stem cells to differentiate into various cell types.

Yamanaka made what is considered among the most significant discoveries in the area of stem cells in 2006 when he became the first scientist to report on a method for "reprogramming" skin cells from mice into embryonic-like stem cells that can differentiate into other types of cells. He will also serve as a professor of anatomy at the University of California at San Francisco in addition to his role at the Gladstone.

His discovery could not only offer a way around the controversy surrounding embryonic stem cells, but could lead the way to therapies based on patient-specific stem cells. Separate teams of scientists—one from UCLA and the other from MIT—this month confirmed Yamanaka's approach in published papers.

For Yamanaka, who left the Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences at Kyoto University, the move is a bit of a homecoming. He completed his post-doctorate fellowship at the Gladstone and said he has wanted to return here. But he also said Prop. 71 has made California a "very attractive environment for stem cell researchers" and not only because of the availability of funding.

"In Japan it is still very difficult to use human embryonic stem cell lines. You have to get approval from the government and it takes at least a year," he said. "I don't want to wait for a year to perform any experiment, so that's another reason."

A Growing List
Yamanaka caps a growing list of researchers who have come to California following voters' approval of Prop. 71. Many of these researchers have been attracted in part by the availability of funding for stem cell research at a time when federal funding has been insignificant and the National Institutes of Health budget is shrinking in real terms. Some have also left states or other countries where the legal environment for performing such research remains restrictive or threatens to become so.

Arlene Chiu, interim chief scientific officer for the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, said she has been impressed that the researchers drawn to California have come from top institutions including Harvard, MIT, and Johns Hopkins. An admittedly incomplete list from the institute, which oversees the disbursement of California's $3 billion of voter-established funding for stem cell research, identifies nearly 40 researchers who have relocated to California since 2005. "We're stealing from the best places," she said.

Though Chiu is reluctant to claim Prop. 71 has made California that center for stem cell research—a title she said other have sought to claim from time to time—the reality is it has made the state a force within the field. "Everywhere around the world people are talking about California—California as a place as a potential competitor for resources, for people, for new ideas starting up, for industry," she said. "We are very much in the eye and the mind of other stem cell researchers around the world."

Competition Heating Up
At UCLA, departments there have recruited six faculty members to perform stem cell research and the university has approved an additional six positions. "We believe the biggest reason these scientists came to UCLA was the promise of $3 billion in state funding to support stem cell research and the specialized facilities and cross-disciplinary collaboration among researchers at the UCLA stem cell institute," said Kim Irwin, a spokeswoman for the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Medicine at UCLA.

To the north in Palo Alto, California, Stanford University has brought on established investigators such as Michael Clarke from the University of Michigan and Stephan Heller from Harvard University as well as several young investigators. The university is currently looking to fill an additional six to eight stem cell positions, according to Renee Reijo Pera, director of Stanford's Center for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research and Education. Pera, who was recruited to Stanford from the nearby University of California at San Francisco, said the number and quality of applications are high, but that because of the limited number of people who have trained as human embryonic stem cell biologists, competition is heating up. "I don't want to give numbers," she said, "but I didn't move for nothing."

Arnold Kriegstein, director of the UCSF Institute for Regeneration Medicine, said while the passage of Prop. 71 has made it easier to recruit talent from out of state, it's also made it more competitive. UCSF has recruited eight researchers and is in the process of hiring a ninth right now. He said there's a scramble at work with multiple institutions developing new programs. He said competition for accomplished stem cell researchers can get fierce and others note at times bidding wars have at times broken out.

"The most talented prospects are receiving multiple offers, not only from institutions in California, but also from other parts of the country," he said. "We have had to use some of our resources to retain people we don't want to lose, so both retention and recruitment are major issues."