55.7 F
San Diego
Tuesday, Mar 19, 2024
-Advertisement-

Stem Cell Facility Delayed

A taxpayer-funded stem cell research laboratory planned for the Torrey Pines Mesa is among three such facilities in the works statewide that have hit snags in their construction timelines.

A move-in date originally scheduled for December has been delayed until June 2011 for the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine, a group comprised of The Burnham Institute for Medical Research, The Salk Institute, The Scripps Research Institute and UC San Diego.

“We always were going to borrow a portion of the money to finance the building,” said Sanford Consortium Vice President Louis Coffman. But raising money on the capital markets, he said, has proven difficult in the current economic environment.

Ultimately, the consortium aims to raise $62 million through the sale of tax-exempt bonds to finance the facility, which has risen in price from its original estimate of $115 million to $127 million.

In 2008, the consortium was awarded a $43 million facilities grant from the state stem cell agency to build a four-story research laboratory along North Torrey Pines Road where scientists from a variety of disciplines could work side by side. South Dakota philanthropist T. Denny Sanford also stepped in with $30 million that year, and the consortium changed its name to reflect his gift.

Sanford Consortium’s project is among 12 major stem cell facilities planned for the state using $270 million in taxpayer money issued through the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

Eight of those projects are on target to begin moving in lab equipment between March and July, CIRM said. But the Sanford Consortium project, along with the Buck Institute for Age Research in Novato and UC Merced, were among those delayed.

— Heather Chambers

-Advertisement-

Featured Articles

-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-

Related Articles

-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-