gilly54

In the SJ Mercury News, an article reported that Andy Grove, CEO of Intel, is giving $5 million as seed money to UCSF for their stem cell research program. It is hoped that the amount will grow to $20 million. Mr. Grove will match every gift of $50,000 to $500,000.

It reported that UCSF was one of the first universities to explore stem cell research in the early 80's. But due to the restrictions placed on this field by the government, it has suffered setbacks, most noticeably by the departure of leading stem cell scientist Roger Pederson, who left for England, which doesn't have any governmental imposed restrictions. Also, to continue its research, UCSF moved one of its labs, funded with private money, off campus.

I find it ironic that the conservative, religious right are fighting for the "rights" of a clump of cells, that would end up in the garbage anyway, when these cells, could be used to cure Alzheimers disease, of which their hero, President Reagan and now Charlton Heston are suffering from. <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

Gilly

Feather

God meant for Reagan and Heston to have the disease, though. Otherwise they wouldn't have it. Duh.

Aldehyde

Blasphemy! How can someone go against the will of God by playing God Himself? Repent thy heathen! Leave those clumps of cells alone! :sarcastically pissed:

Wow, Mr.Grove is one rich guy isn't he?

SteveD

Well Mr. Grove is not as rich has he used to be. He didn't make Forbes list of the 400 richest americans in 2001 which means he is worth less than $600 million.

Steve

rainbow walking

Hi Gilly,
Ryanfire and I are actually putting together a website to address some of these problems with the religious right and their hampering of stem cell research. The site is still in the developmental stage at present and focuses on the theme of indefinite life but we have plans to include links and articles from the more pertinent sites and journals that deal with the scientific advances, including stem cell research, that are leading to a manipulation of the human biological clock. We could use some input if you're interested. Here is a link to the site as it now stands:

<a href="http://ryan.real.ca/death.html" target="_blank">http://ryan.real.ca/death.html</a>

Bill

On the other hand, he isn't "poor" by any stretch of the imagination. Two years ago, he sold 800,000 shares of Intel for $80 million. That was a pretty good price ($100 per share) compared with today's closing price ($18.29). He <a href="http://www.quicken.com/investments/insider/?symbol=INTC" target="_blank">sold 300,000 more shares in January of this year at around $32 each, and it is reported that, after that transaction, he would still hold 7,793,397 shares</a> which, at today's closing price, would be worth a mere $142.5 million. Of course, if Intel stock were to go back up over $100 per share again.....

== Bill

lpetrich

I had started a thread on Ronald Reagan's condition over in Misc. Discussions; he's advanced rather far into the disease's progression.