3rd-place finish boosts UCI among candidates for grants

UCI on Friday placed third among 12 candidates for a state grant for research in stem cell therapies.

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine’s Major Facilities Grants is awarding an unannounced number of grants totaling between $25 million and $50 million, school officials said. The grant will help bring new stem cell research facilities into public universities, expand stem cell research and improve inadequate ones, officials said. If chosen, universities must raise a significant amount of their own money for the institute to match.

UCI finished behind the San Diego Consortium, a joint effort of the Burnham Institute, UC San Diego, the Scripps Research Institute and the Salk Institute, and Stanford University.

The second round of applications are up for consideration next month, school officials said.

— Joseph Serna