The governing board of the California stem cell agency is delaying the approved $58 million in research grants till March due to the sluggish economy and credit market.

The money is to be shared by 26 institutions which include San Francisco State University, UC Berkeley, UCSF, Stanford University, the J. David Gladstone Institutes and San Jose State University to aid stem cell research from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine CIRM.

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine was created by voters in 2004 with $3 billion in borrowing power to promote stem cell research. Since its inception the institute's board has awarded nearly $700 million to universities, institutes and research companies. Board members say they have enough money on hand to fund previously promised grants through September.

The board gave tentative approval of the grants to train the future workforce of scientists and laboratory technicians but chose not to approve immediate funding of the programs due to the state's inability to sell bonds on the public market. CIRM is working out feasibility of selling the bonds on the private market.

Undergraduate and master's degree-level students in stem cell research will get eleven grants totaling $17.5 million while15 grants totaling $40.6 million are designed for graduate students, postdoctoral scholars and clinical fellows working in stem cell research labs.

The institutions, including San Francisco State and San Jose State with about $1.7 million each, will teach lecture and lab courses, help place interns in local companies, and advise students regarding research progress and career opportunities. The University of California, Berkeley, would receive $3.37 million, UCSF would get nearly $3.9 million and the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco would receive more than $2.5 million.

The three-year UCSF grant, for example, will support six graduate students, six post docs and four clinical-scientists, either M. D. s or PhD's. It is the second round of graduate/post doc/clinical fellow grants awarded by CIRM with sixteen approved in 2006.

"Stem cell biology requires new ways of thinking, new tools and new skills," Arnold Kriegstein, director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCSF, said in a news release. "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."