Scientists Follow the Money.

Shortly after President Bush announced in August 2001 that federally funded stem cell biologists in the US would have to work under tight restrictions, Roger Pedersen packed his bags for the UK. Pedersen, whose research at the University of California at San Francisco had earned him a place near the top of his field, moved his lab to the more liberal environment of University of Cambridge.

Leaving the US proved to be a good career move for Pedersen: last year Cambridge made him co-director of a new $30m stem cell institute. And Pedersen was hardly alone in his emigration, observes Mahendra Rao, who directs stem cell research at the US National Institute on Aging. Rao points to several scientists who left lucrative biotech posts in the US to set up lab-keeping overseas.

But if there was a brain drain of stem cell investigators from the US, the attraction of a $3bn honeypot in California seems to be reversing the flow. "A number of leading scientists in our field have been interviewing in California for lead positions", says Melissa Carpenter, an American pioneer in the field who jumped two years ago to the Roberts Research Institute in Ontario, Canada. "UC Irvine is recruiting aggressively", Carpenter reports, "and so is Stanford". Carpenter herself just decided to return to the US to head up stem cell research at CyThera, a startup in San Diego. The passage of Proposition 71 was not the only reason for her return, she says, but it was an important factor.

Indeed, the Golden State is beckoning to many in the field, including those elsewhere in the US. At the National Institutes of Health, Rao says "it has been getting harder to recruit, and we are losing people (to California)". Arlene Chiu, who directed astern cell research programme at the NIH, quit in April to take a job with the new California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). James Battey, the current director of the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, says he has applied to CIRM for the job of president.

"We cannot compete by giving them more money", Rao explains. "And many people have a real worry about federal funding being available in the future. I myself have been tempted" to join the California bandwagon, he admits.

Although the westward pull is strongest for senior researchers, it seems to be influencing young scientists as well. "We have recruited a group of students for next year", says Arnold Kriegstein, who leads a stem cell training program at UCSF. "I think Prop 71 made some of them choose UCSF over institutions back east".

"The US is competing with Singapore, Australia, the UK--there are considerable resources there, too, and the restrictions are considerably fewer", Carpenter says. "Before joining CyThera, I looked at those as options for myself", she adds. "It's definitely a competition, and it will be interesting to see how it all falls out".

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By W. W. G.