San Francisco State University, UC Berkeley, UCSF, Stanford University, the J. David Gladstone Institutes and San Jose State University are among 26 institutions that will share in a $58 million training program to aid stem cell research from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM).

Nevertheless the governing board of the California stem cell agency is delaying $58 million in research grants at least until March because of the poor economy and credit market.

Voters created the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine in 2004 with $3 billion in borrowing power to promote stem cell research. The institute's board has since awarded nearly $700 million to universities, institutes and research companies.

Nevertheless taking measures in this field is still a necessary action: “If we are to determine the potential of stem cells and other early-stage cells for treating disease, we need to prepare the brightest young stem cell scientists in the field and ensure that they are prepared to move basic research findings from the lab to the clinic,” Arnold Kriegstein, director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCSF, said in a news release.

California scientists saw the stem cell institute as a way to diversify, and perhaps increase, their funding sources. Its promise prompted dozens of scientists, and even businesses, to move to California.

Moreover the institute plans to sell general-obligation bonds to deep-pocketed investors who have similar goals of curing disease, such as major foundations with a patient-advocacy bent. It needs to raise a minimum of $138 million just to fund the programs it has approved through the end of 2010, when it hopes the state budget mess is resolved