Why the CDRF is investing in stem cell research

Bernie Siegel is introducing Danny Heumann, mega-rock star from Ann Arbor. Michigan apparently has a ballot initiative up this year that will support hESc research in Michigan.

He says that his family and he were able to raise $5 million dollars to fund research to cure spinal cord injury. (Danny is speaking from his wheelchair). He decided recently that he wanted to juice it up a bit, and so joined forces with CDRF. Now he's giving a fine introduction to Peter Kiernan, whom he describes as superhuman.

Keirnan . . . how I got here. I worked on wall street. I was a mercenary. So what does wall street know about nonprofits. Actually, a lot, if you read the papers. ha ha ha

So, he got a phone call from a dear friend who asked him to

We used to have 2 living breathing iconoclasts who were the DNA of our organization. Their lasting legacy is that we're now raising more money today than we ever did when they were alive.

"Join with us."

Here's the top 10 things we're fighting for, Letterman style

10. Get the politics out of stem cell research & let the scientists do their work. I always thought scientists were objective, cool, dispassionate . . . NO. They're driven. Let them work.

9. Fund the young scientists. We're making them into politicians, always going around with their hands out. The only get 5% of the dough the NIH has handed out, and we need them in the world of hESc research. It's time to invest in the human infrastructure.

8. Get more dough into translational researchers. There's a valley of death between basic science and clinical work. We're pretty good at picking the right idea. The way venture capital works is, you pick 10 things and hope that 2 or 3 of them work out. We need to become a magnet for money.

7. Create the global world network. What we know from the human genome project isthat it can be done. When it comes to sci--that complex of a problem-- will need lots and lots of colaborators

6. Change the subject. Dolly the sheep hi-jacked the conversation and we need to take it back. We're

5. Educate the press. They're very good at distilling complicated issues into simple things. They don't know where to focus, and that is our fault. We have to direct them, or else they turn everything into a competition. (Adult stem cells are the best!)

4. Embrace business more effectively than we have. Pharma knows that they need to figure this out -- we've spent more time with them in the last year than we have in all the last 10 put together. We're on the tipping point for human clinical trials . . . there will be some victories and some pain. We have to be collaborating with the business community or we'll get set back.

3. Create that national stem cell bank. Like a federal reserve bank . . . we need to be looking at how this will evolve and be prepared to organize so that there are standards and procedures everyone can depend on. In the USA we're in a fits and starts mode . . but we should follow the UK/Canada model.

2. Police ourselves. We live in an impoverished (but blissful) world of zero regulation together with very little money. What we don't want is to get the big regulation and the same crumbs of cash. It's our job to be vigilant about bad science and to call out the snake oil sellers. Makes the comparison to wall street: police yourself or you're going to get policed.

1. Achieve a clinical breakthrough. In the 70's IVF was the work of the devil. Joy Louise Brown changed that conversation. The world's best researchers are in this room. Amazing things are about to happen and everybody here knows it; we're going to bend the river.

MMMM, Danny was right. he's a good speaker.