December 13, 2004

GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER NOMINATES CHAIR AND VICE CHAIR OF STEM CELL OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE AND APPOINTS FIVE COMMITTEE MEMBERS

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today announced his selections for leadership of the Independent Citizens Oversight Committee (ICOC) which oversees the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine created by the passage of Proposition 71.

The Governor announced his nomination of Robert Klein for chairman and Edward Penhoet for vice chairman of the ICOC. The Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Treasurer and Controller each nominate a chair and vice chair candidate to be considered by the 27 appointed members of the ICOC for election at the first meeting of the committee.

"I am confident that this team will provide the leadership, vision and oversight necessary to guide this important and landmark committee as they work to establish California's prominence as a leader in stem cell research," said Governor Schwarzenegger. "Bob's passion for pursuing and furthering stem cell research and Ed's tremendous experience and wisdom as a researcher and scientist is a powerful combination that will serve not only this committee and institute well, but also the people of California who have the expectation that this effort will be overseen with integrity, accountability and best practices."

Robert N. Klein, II, is president of Klein Financial Corporation, a real estate investment banking consulting company focused on affordable housing finance and development with a record of approximately $3 billion in financing and developing public and private projects. His commitment to advancing medical research originated with his youngest son Jordan's diagnosis of juvenile diabetes in 2001. In addition, his mother has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and his father died from heart disease. In 2002, Klein was a principal negotiator, as a part of a JDRF team that worked successfully to pass a $1.5 billion mandatory federal funding bill for an additional five years of Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes supplemental National Institutes of Health research funding. More recently he served as Chairman of the California Proposition 71 committee, the "California Stem Cell Research and Cures" ballot initiative. In other civic activities, Klein served for six years as a board member for the State of California Housing Finance Agency. This public corporation of the State of California was created by legislation in 1976, which Klein wrote as the principal consultant to the California State Assembly and State Senate Joint Committee on Housing and Urban Renewal. Klein continues to serve on the Board of the Global Security Institute, dedicated to reducing the global risks from nuclear weapons. His other accomplishments include: developing California's first tax credit National Historic Site Restoration Project and development of California's first tax-exempt, bond-financed, affordable apartment project. Klein, 59, of Portola Valley, earned a Juris Doctorate from Stanford University School of Law and a Bachelor of Arts degree in History from Stanford University. Klein is a Democrat.

Dr. Edward Penhoet has dedicated his career to advocating for the development and discovery of cures and preventative measures for many life threatening-diseases. He is currently the president of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation which is dedicated to improving the quality of life for future generations through science, education and environmental conservation. Prior to assuming this role in the fall of 2004, he worked as the organization's chief program officer for science and higher education. In 1999, Penhoet co- founded Renovis, a bio-tech firm working on the growth and regeneration of nerves. Before joining the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and founding Renovis, Penhoet co-founded, in 1981, the Chiron Corporation and served as its chief executive officer until 1998. Under his leadership, both Chiron and Penhoet became advocates for people with many life-threatening diseases through making many ground breaking discoveries in the development of products which became therapies and prevention measures for those diseases. One of the first of these was the development of the process by which human insulin is manufactured affecting those with both juvenile and type II diabetes. Chiron also was the first to clone and sequence the entire genome of the HIV virus in the hopes of developing a vaccine. Although work is still being done to develop the vaccine, the tests which are in standard use for AIDS patients and for screening blood evolved from this research. Chiron also co-developed beta seron, the first product used to treat multiple sclerosis and was the first to develop pro-leukin, a treatment for kidney cancer, which also has applications for melanoma patients. During Penhoet's tenure at Chiron, discoveries were also made in the prevention of both Hepatitis B and C. For 10 years prior to founding Chiron, Dr. Penhoet was a faculty member in the Biochemistry Department of the University of California, Berkeley. He returned to Berkeley to serve as dean of the School of Public Health and professor of molecular and cell biology immediately prior to joining the Betty and Gordon Moore Foundation. Penhoet served as chairman of the California Health Care Institute and the Chabot Space & Science Center boards, and as a member of the San Francisco Bay Area Bioscience Center and Kaiser Permanente boards. Penhoet was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and is a member of many organizations including the Science, Technology, and Economic Policy Board of the National Research Council, American Society of Biological Chemists, National Research Council Commission on Life Sciences, National Institute of Health Economic Roundtable on Biomedical Research and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Penhoet has published more than 50 scientific articles and papers and received numerous awards, including the Association of Fundraising Professionals' Outstanding Philanthropist Award, the first Distinguished Faculty Award in the Life Sciences from the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He was also honored with the Harvard Business School Northern California Alumni Chapter Award as Entrepreneur of the Year. Penhoet, 64, of Oakland, holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Washington and a Bachelor's degree in biology from Stanford University. He was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of California, San Diego. Penhoet is a Democrat.

Additionally, today the Governor announced the appointment of Dr. Keith Black, Dr. Brian Henderson, Dr. Oswald Steward, Dr. Leon Thal and Gayle Wilson to the ICOC.

"Each of these individuals has the experience, education, passion and commitment necessary to keep California on the path to leading the nation in groundbreaking and life-saving research," said Governor Schwarzenegger. "They share my hope in the possibilities the creation of this institute gives to people struggling with life-threatening diseases and my commitment to keeping California on the cutting edge of technology and bio-tech advances."

Dr. Keith L. Black is the director of the Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute and director of neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. An internationally renowned neurosurgeon and scientist, he joined Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in 1997 and was awarded the Ruth and Lawrence Harvey chair in Neurosciences. Before joining Cedars-Sinai, Black served on the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) faculty for 10 years where he was a professor of neurosurgery. In 1992 he was awarded the Ruth and Raymond Stotter chair in the Department of Surgery and was head of the UCLA Comprehensive Brain Tumor Program. Black pioneered research on designing ways to open the blood-brain barrier, for which he earned the Jacob Javits award from the National Advisory Neurological Disorders and Stroke Council of the National Institutes of Health. Black's other groundbreaking research has focused on developing a vaccine to enhance the body's immune response to brain tumors, use of gene arrays to develop molecular profiles of tumors, the use of optical technology for brain mapping, and the use of focused microwave energy to noninvasively destroy brain tumors. He completed his term as a member of the National Institutes of Health's Board of Scientific Counselors for Neurological Disorders and Strokes, and is a member of the National Advisory Neurological Disorders and Stroke Council of the National Institutes of Health, American Association of Neurological Surgeons, Neurosurgical Society of America, and the Academy of Neurological Surgery. He also is a Founding Member of the North American Skull Base Society. Black has published over 250 articles throughout his career. Black, 47, of Los Angeles, completed an accelerated college program at the University of Michigan where he earned both his undergraduate and medical degrees. He completed his internship in general surgery and residency in neurological surgery at the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor. Black is a Republican.

Dr. Brian Henderson is the dean of the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California (USC) and the Kenneth T. Norris Jr. chair in cancer prevention. Today, Henderson is considered one of the world's pre-eminent authorities in cancer epidemiology. Henderson first came to the USC medical school in 1970 as an associate professor of pathology. From 1993 to 1995 he served as president of the San Diego-based Salk Institute for Biological Studies before returning to USC in 1996. During his tenure at USC, Henderson founded the Los Angeles Cancer Surveillance program, the Hawaii-Los Angeles Multiethnic Cohort, was founding chair of the Department of Preventive Medicine, served as director of the USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center and director of the Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute. Henderson was inducted into the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and was awarded the Presidential Medallion, USC's highest honor. Henderson's specific areas of research focus on the interconnection and interplay between environmental and genetic factors in the development, treatment and prevention of a wide variety of cancers. His work on the influences of reproductive hormones on cancer, as well as that of various dietary components are ongoing and widely cited. Henderson's early research focus was on virology, a pursuit that took him to Africa with the Arbovirology Unit of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where he studied yellow fever. Throughout his career he has published over 500 articles. Henderson, 67, of San Marino, earned his undergraduate degree from the University of California at Berkeley, and his M.D. from the University of Chicago Medical School. Henderson is registered decline-to-state.

Dr. Oswald Steward is the chair and director of the Reeve - Irvine Research Center for Spinal Cord Injury at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) and also professor of Anatomy and Neurobiology. Named for actor Christopher Reeve, the Center was established to study injuries to and diseases of the spinal cord and develop strategies to promote repair and regeneration of nerve cells. Dr. Steward serves on the board of the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation and also serves as the chair of its Science Advisory Council. Prior to joining the University of California, Irvine, Steward was chair of Neuroscience and Harrison Foundation Professor of Neuroscience and Neurosurgery at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, where he served on the faculty from 1974 to 1999. Steward is known for his research on how nerve cells create and maintain their connections with each other and how these synapses are modified after injuries. He has conducted research on how genes influence nerve cell regeneration, growth and function, and how physiological activity affects nerve cell connections. He has served in leadership roles at the Society for Neuroscience, the American Association of Anatomists and as a member of the American Society for Cell Biology. He also was the chair of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) neurobiology review group and served on the NIH Spinal cord injury planning committee. Steward is a recipient of the NIH Research Career Development Award, the Jacob Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award and the Distinguished Investigator Award from the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression. He is the author of two neurobiology texts and also Associate Editor of the Journal of Comparative Neurology and an editorial board member of several professional journals. Dr. Steward has published close to 200 articles. Steward, 56, of Laguna Beach, earned a Ph.D. in psychobiology from UCI and an undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Steward is a Democrat.

Dr. Thal is the chair and professor of the Department of Neurosciences at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and the director of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at UCSD. He leads a national consortium of over eighty centers called the Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study. The centers are funded with a grant from the National Institute of Health (NIH) on Aging to test promising drugs for Alzheimer's disease quickly and efficiently. His clinical experience includes service at over six hospitals throughout his career, including Bronx Municipal Hospital Center, Lincoln Hospital, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, St. Barnabas Hospital, UCSD Medical Center, and San Diego Veteran's Affairs Medical Center. Thal is currently an advisor on the Federal Drug Administration's (FDA) Alzheimer Assessment Team and is a member of many medical associations and boards including the San Diego chapter of the Alzheimer's Association. He has served as chairman of FDA Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee and the Clinical Trial Subcommittee for the Alzheimer's Disease Research Centers. He was also the director of research programs for the Geriatrics Section at the American Academy of Neurology and served on the executive committee of the Alzheimer's Disease Center Program and the Medical and Scientific Advisory Board of the Alzheimer's Association. Thal has received numerous honors and awards and has extensive experience as a grant reviewer. He has published over 500 articles and sits on the editorial boards of the Alzheimer's Disease Review, Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, Dementia and Geriatric Disorders, Journal of Neural Transmission, International Journal of Geriatiric Psychopharmacology and more. Thal, 60, of San Diego, earned a M.D. from Downstate Medical Center, State University of New York and a Bachelor of Science degree from Tufts University. Thal is a Democrat.

Gayle Wilson is a member of the boards of directors of Gilead Sciences, Inc., a bio-pharmaceutical company; Chela Financial, Inc., an education financing company; and the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation. She is a member of the board of trustees of California Institute of Technology (Caltech), serving on its Jet Propulsion Lab Committee, as well as the Center for Excellence in Education. Wilson's career has been primarily as a community volunteer, with dual concentrations in the areas of early childhood health and math and science education at the high school level. As California's first lady from 1991 to 1999, she served as the catalyst for the establishment of the excellence-based California State Summer School for Math and Science (COSMOS) and today serves as chair of the COSMOS Advisory Board. As first lady, she also served as the honorary chair of the drive to restore the Leland Stanford Mansion for use by the Governor for official events. As a spokesperson for BabyCal, she worked to prevent teen pregnancy by promoting California's Partnership for Responsible Parenting. Wilson also took a significant role in ensuring that all newborn babies in public hospitals are tested for hearing loss, while publicizing State programs aimed at improving childhood health. She also championed the importance of annual mammograms, acted as a spokesperson for California's Breast Cancer Initiative, served as a spokesperson and recruiter for California's Mentor Initiative and worked as honorary chairman of the Commission on Improving Life Through Service, which successfully recruited over 200,000 mentors. Wilson, 62, of Los Angeles, graduated Phi Beta Kappa and holds a Bachelor of Arts in biology from Stanford University. She was also named one of the national finalists in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search based on her work with blood typing. Wilson is a Republican.

These positions do not require Senate confirmation and the compensation is $100 per diem.

The ICOC is composed of 29 members (including a chairperson and vice chairperson) representing the University of California campuses with medical schools; other California universities and California medical research institutions; California disease advocacy groups; and California experts in the development of medical therapies. The Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Treasurer and Controller each make five appointments to the board and the speaker of the Assembly and the president pro tempore of the Senate each appoint one member. Chancellors of the University of California at San Francisco, Davis, San Diego, Los Angeles and Irvine also appoint an executive officer from each of their campuses. The ICOC governs the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. The California Stem Cell Research and Cures Act, Proposition 71, created both the ICOC and the Institute.

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