Random Items

Random Items

The “news” today continues to be political and commentary, much of which I have already blogged on. I caught the beginning of the news cycle, and the stories kep cropping up other places but don’t have anything to add. No new research as of right now, and even the political stuff is deliberation and not passage of new laws.

So here are links if you want to follow a particular story, but I’m not going to blog extensively on them.

San Francisco Chronicle editorial on the Prop 71 lawsuit: the editorial says that the delay in implementing the research caused by the lawsuit has allowed sensible guidelines and oversight to be created, and that California needs to be a pioneer in creating a workable and open system for stem cell research.

The Maryland Gazette reports on the current status of the Maryland stem cell bill in the state Assembly. It’s mostly a status report, summarizing what happened in the Senate last week and quoting a Maryland Senator as saying that the “weaker” version of the bill which passed in the Senate may wind up having to be the final version; she doesn’t think the Senate could pass the stronger Hosue of Delegates version.

Forbes has an article that gives an overview of the state of stem cell research in the U.S. and then discusses how to choose which stem cell firms to invest in if you want to play the biotech stock market. It suggests Geron and ViaCell as the most likely to pay off in investments.

I have a lot of scattered thoughts about the economics of biotech, but none of them cohere enough to be worth writing down yet….