Researchers from the University of
Southern California are making a pitch to overturn rejection of their
$20 million grant application by reviewers in one of the signature
commercialization rounds of the California stem cell agency.

“We are submitting the petition at
this time as we are new to the CIRM ICOC(governing board) process and after listening
to the July 26 ICOC meeting deliberations now understand that the
petition process allows the ICOC to further consider our proposal.
We noted that the proposal scored one point above ours and another
two points below ours, each utilized the extraordinary petition
strategy to gain ICOC review which resulted in funding approval in
the former, and reconsideration in the latter instance.”

“I'm not really quire sure that all
of the applicants clearly understood that they could come back to us
to address the criticisms(of reviewers).”

Concerns about whether all applicants fully understand the appeal process have surfaced on a number of occasions over the last several years. The CIRM board, however, is generally reluctant to overturn negative recommendations by reviewers. It also almost never reverses positive recommendations.

Source:
http://californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss